William Makepeace Thackeray; a biography including hitherto uncollected letters & speeches & a bibliography of 1300 items

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE THACKERAY COUNTRY

VICTORIAN NOVELISTS

BATH UNDER BEAU NASH

BRIGHTON

"THE FIRST GEORGE"

"FARMER GEORGE"

"THE FIRST GENTLEMAN OF EUROPE"

THE BEAUX OF THE REGENCY

EDITOR OF

MACMILLAN'S EDITION OF THACKERAY'S

WORKS
"STRAY PAPERS." By W. M. Thackeray

WITH HELEN MELVILLE
LONDON'S LURE : AN ANTHOLOGY

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( fiv D^rmjsswn of M'a.wr IVUJj/uThH Lamb art. J

: : WILLIAM : :

MAKEPEACE
THACKERAY

A BIOGRAPHY INCLUDING HITHERTO
UNCOLLECTED LETTERS & SPEECHES
& A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 1300 ITEMS
BY LEWIS MELVILLE <a <S ^ <B <B
WITH 2 PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAITS
©•NUMEROUS OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
IN TWO VOLUMES— VOLUME ONE

JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD

VIGO STREET, LONDON, W. MCMX

Plymouth: wm. brendon and son, ltd., printers

ETBRARY

XJraYERSITV OF CMAl
SAm'A BAliHAih

TO

MY FELLOW-MEMBERS

OF
THE TITMARSH CLUB

PREFACE

TEN years have passed since I published a
biography of Thackeray. This has been
out of print for a long time, and Messrs.
Hutchinson and Company have generously
restored to me their rights in that book. The present
Life, however, is not a reprint, nor a revised edition
of the previous one, but an entirely new work, the
writing of which, together with the collateral reading,
has occupied the leisure of several years. Though I
am only too well aware how much better the task
might have been carried out, at least I can claim that
this is an improvement upon the earlier work.

''When a man has exercised a large influence on
the minds of his contemporaries, the world requires to
know whether his own actions have corresponded with
his teaching, and whether his moral and personal
character entitled him to confidence. This is not idle
curiosity : it is a legitimate demand." So says Froude
in his preface to the life of Carlyle, and there are few
who will care to dispute the point. When my bio-
graphy of Thackeray was published in 1899, there
was some discussion as to whether it should have
been written, for it was said that Thackeray had
desired there should be no biography of him. It was
agreed by most critics, however, that such an injunc-
tion could only be held to bind his relatives; and, we

X PREFACE

know, those closely connected with him have inter-
preted this in the letter rather than the spirit of the
injunction. It is true that there has been no formal
biography, but the delightful Introductions to the
Biographical Edition of his works by his daughter,
Lady Ritchie, so nearly approach this (except in the
matter of arrangement) that Mr. Clement Shorter, who
has had them bound up together, says, and with
reason, that he may fairly claim to possess an author-
ised Life of Thackeray by his daughter. It is not
only Lady Ritchie, however, who has drawn aside the
veil. Sir Leslie Stephen, Thackeray's son-in-law,
wrote a memoir, and Thackeray's relatives and con-
nections by marriage, the Rev. St. John Thackeray,
Mr. Richard Bedingfield, and Canon Irvine, have
jotted down their memories of the great man ; while
his friends, the Brookfields and the Baxters, have
printed his letters to them. Indeed, most of his
friends have at one time or another given their re-
collections of him to the world, and among these may
be mentioned Mr. J. F. Boyes, Dr. John Brown, the
Misses Corkran, Mr. Eyre Crowe, the Rev. Whitwell
Elwin, Mr. James T. Fields and his wife, Mr. Blanchard
Jerrold, Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson, Mr. Locker-Lampson,
Mr. Herman Merivale, Dr. Merriman, the Hon. W. B.
Reed, and Anthony Trollope, Since, then, Thackeray's
relatives and friends have recounted everything they
could remember about him and have printed most of
his letters that have been preserved, a stranger can
scarcely be expected to interpret Thackeray's wish more
stringently than those who knew him well. I think,
since it is upon these revelations that my book is in the
main based, my position requires no defence — though.

PREFACE xi

if defence is necessary, it is to be found in Thackeray's
words : —

We all want to know details regarding the men who
have achieved famous feats, whether of war, or wit,
or eloquence, or endurance, or knowledge. . . . We
want to see this man who has amused and charmed
us ; who has been our friend, or given us hours of
pleasant companionship and pleasant thought.^

I have endeavoured to write a straightforward
narrative of the novelist's life, and throughout to
follow what would certainly have been the great man's
wish, that truth should be told, and the scars painted
in the portrait.

Thackeray liked to read of the lives of literary men —

If the secret history of books could be written, and
the author's private thoughts noted down alongside of
his story, how many insipid volumes would become
interesting, and dull tales excite the reader !^

His stories are frequently autobiographical ; he often
drew upon his experiences, notably in " Pendennis" and
*' Philip"; so that the reader, knowing his life, must
certainly find an added pleasure when reading the
novels. His departure from India, his arrival in
England, his early school-life, the Charterhouse days,
Larkbeare, Cambridge, his misfortunes in London,
his life in the Paris studios, the newspapers he
was connected with, the people he met, the places he
visited, are all reproduced under thin disguises. At
the same time it has to be borne in mind that his books
are no mere transcript from his life, and, while often
illustrating an incident in the novelist's career by an
extract from his writings, I have been careful to do so

' On a Joke I once heard from the late Thomas Hood.

xii PREFACE

only when there is every reason to believe that the
passages quoted are indeed autobiographical.

There is no lack of material for the biographer of
Thackeray, for, as has been said, a great number
of his letters have been printed as well as the recollec-
tions of many who knew him. The primary authorities,
of course, are Lady Ritchie's Biographical Introductions
and Sir Leslie Stephen's memoir ; and only next in
importance to these is the monograph by Mr. Herman
Merivale and Sir Frank T. Marzials. Mr. John
Camden Hotten's book on "Thackeray, the Humourist
and the Man of Letters" is a useful compilation. Sir
William Hunter has written of the novelist's forbears
in "The Thackerays in India"; Mr. J. F. Boyes has
given his impression of Thackeray at the Charterhouse ;
and the Rev. Whitwell Elwin, who also treats of this
early period, carries on the narrative to the time when
Thackeray was in search of a profession. Thackeray
in a letter to Lewes recalled memories of his stay at
Weimar; and "The Paris Sketch Book" and the con-
tributions to the Corsair and the Britannia contain
first-hand accounts of the time spent at Paris. Mr. C. P.
Johnson has outlined the early years of Thackeray
as a writer, and further particulars of the period are to
be found in Thackeray's letters to Edward FitzGerald,
Lord Houghton, Macvey Napier, and Professor Aytoun,
in the autobiographies of Sir Henry Cole and Henry
Vizetelly, in Mr. Fitzpatrick's "Life of Charles Lever,"
etc. Mr. M. H. Spielmann has written of Thackeray's
connection with Punch; and for the years after the pub-
lication of "Vanity Fair" there are Thackeray's letters
to the Brookfields, the correspondence of Charlotte
Bronte, the Carlyles, and the Brownings, and memoirs

PREFACE xiii

too numerous to mention. There are records of the
American trips in Thackeray's letters to the Hon.
William B. Reed and the Baxters, in Eyre Crowe's
''With Thackeray in America," the biographies and
correspondence of Prescott, Ticknor, Motley, Bancroft,
Longfellow, James T. Fields, Lester Wallack, etc. ;
and much interesting information has been collected
by General James Grant Wilson in " Thackeray in the
United States. " Thackeray's connection with the Corn-
hill Magazine has been told by Lady Ritchie and
Mr. George M. Smith in articles entitled respectively.
The First Number of the Cornhill and Our Birth
and Parentage. A full list of authorities is printed at
the end of this work.

Since the publication of my earlier work on Thackeray
I have received from correspondents personally un-
known to me many letters containing information and
suggestions, and I take this opportunity to tender my
thanks to these gentlemen, among whom I may mention
Dr. Marcus P. Hatfield, of Chicago, Mr. Leonard L.
Mackall, of Jena, and Mr. W. Reid Lewis, of Bedford.
I must also express my indebtedness for assistance
kindly rendered by Mr. Thomas Seccombe and the Rev.
Henry W. Clark, both of whom have read the proofs of
this book; Mr. Frederick S. Dickson, and Mr. Walter
Jerrold. His Excellency the American Ambassador (the
Hon. Whitelaw Reid) has kindly permitted me to quote
a passage from a speech recently delivered by him at the
Titmarsh Club ; and Sir Frank T. Marzials has most
generously allowed me to make use of the monograph
on Thackeray in the "Great Writers'" Series, written
by him in collaboration with the late Herman Merivale.

For permission to insert letters written by Thack-

xiv PREFACE

eray I am indebted to Sir Theodore Martin and
Messrs. William Blackwood and Sons (two letters
from Sir Theodore Martin's '' Life of W. E.
Aytoun "), Messrs. William Blackwood and Sons (a
letter from Mrs. Oliphant's '' Annals of a Publishing
House," and another from Anthony TroUope's "Auto-
biography"), Mr. M. H. Spielmann (a letter from
"The Hitherto Unidentified Contributions of W. M.
Thackeray to Pimck^^), Mr. John Murray (a letter from
"The Correspondence of Abraham Hayward "), Lady
Reid, Lord Crewe, and Messrs. Cassell and Co., Ltd.
(three letters from Sir T. Wemyss Reid's " Life of Lord
Houghton "), and Mr. W. Lawrence Bradbury (two
letters in his possession). Mr. Clement Shorter has
kindly allowed me to quote from "The Brontes: Life
and Letters," and Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Ltd.,
from Lady Ritchie's "Chapters from Some Memoirs"
and "The Letters of Edward FitzGerald." Mr. S.
Causley, the owner of the only known copy of the rare
pamphlet " Proceedings at the Thirteenth Anniversary
Festival of The Royal General Theatrical Fund, 1858,"
has been good enough to permit me to copy the hitherto
unreprintedspeechof Thackeray contained therein ; and
Major William H. Lambert, of Philadelphia, has most
generously had photographed for insertion in this book
four portraits of Thackeray in his possession, never
before published. In the Foreword to the Bibliography
I acknowledge further debts of gratitude for informa-
tion given me in connection with that section.

LEWIS MELVILLE

Salcombe, Harpenden, Herts,
June 30, 1909.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Preface ix

Contents xv

Illustrations xxiii

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The Thackeray family — John de Thackwra — William de Thackwra
— Robert Thackra — Walter Thackeray of Hampsthwaite —
Elias Thackeray — Archdeacon Thackeray — his sons and
daughters — the Rev. Elias Thackeray, Vicar of Dundalk —
and Thackeray's tribute to him in "The Irish Sketch Book" —
the Archdeacon's fifth son — and his family — William Make-
peace Thackeray, grandfather of the novelist — the Thack-
erays a typical Anglo-Indian family — the novelist's uncles
and aunts — his cousin Sir Richmond Shakespear— Richmond
Thackeray and Anne Becher, the novelist's parents — the
birth of Thackeray ....... Pages 3-12

CHAPTER n

CHILDHOOD (1811-1S22)

Death of Richmond Thackeray — Thackeray and Richmond Shake-
spear sent to England, 1817 — Thackeray's recollections of
India — his subsequent acquaintance with Anglo-Indians — his
mother's teachings — their affection for each other — her marriage
with Major Carmichael-Smyth — Major and Mrs. Carmichael-
Smyth return to England, 1821 — Thackeray's journey from India
to England — he sees Napoleon at St. Helena — stays with his
guardian, Peter Moore, at Hadley — and afterwards with Mrs.
Becher, at Fareham — goes to school at Southampton — his un-
happiness there — sent to Dr. Turner's school at Chiswick —
Walpole House and Miss Pinkerton's Academy . . 13-20

3{V

XVI CONTENTS

CHAPTER III

THE CHARTERHOUSE (1822-1828)

Thackeray goes to the Charterhouse, 1822 — Dr. John Russell —
Dr, Russell portrayed in " Pendcnnis " — Thackeray unhappy at
the Charterhouse — at the Rev. Edward Penny's house in Wilder-
ness Row — becomes a day-boy and lives at Mrs. Boyes's — his
studies — his schoolfellows — his love of reading-, and especially
of novel-reading — first attempts to write — his earliest verses —
his passion for caricature — description of him as a schoolboy —
his nose broken in a fight — he creates " Grey Friars " — visits his
old school — Thackeray the great apostle of "tipping" — the
Poor Brethren of the Charterhouse — a prototype of Colonel
Newcome — Thackeray's description of Grey Friars in "The
Newcomes" .... .... Pages 21-^1

CHAPTER IV

LARKBEARE AND CAMBRIDGE (1828-1830)

Thackeray leaves the Charterhouse — stays with his mother and
stepfather at Larkbeare, Ottery St. Mary — prepares for
Cambridge — Larkbeare and Ottery St. Mary in "Pendennis" —
"Irish Melody" — Captain Costigan and Miss Fotheringay — at
Cambridge — Thackeray's good intentions — his studies — his
amusements — ^his views on history — and on Shelley — speech at
the Union on Napoleon — assists in the formation of an Essay
Club — contributes to the Sjtob — " Timbuctoo " — " Rams-
bottom Papers " — his friendships — Richard Monckton Milnes —
Rev. W. H. Brookfield and his wife — Edward Fitzgerald —
Alfred Tennyson ......... 42-67

CHAPTER V

AM RHEIN (1 830-1 83 1)

Thackeray goes abroad — Paris — Coblenz — Godesberg — Cologne
— Weimar — Weimar in "Vanity Fair" — his flirtations — Doro-
thea and her prototype — his opinions of the German writers —
Mme. Goethe— "Grand Old Goethe" .... 68-80

CHAPTER VI

THE TEMPLE (1831-1832)

Thackeray a student of Middle Temple — chambers at No. 2, Brick
Court — writes of the literary associations of the Temple — the.

CONTENTS xvii

Temple in his writings — loses money at cards — the original of
Deuceace — chambers at No. lo, Crown Office Row — work and
play- — dislike of the law — goes to Cornwall to canvass for Charles
Buller — comes of age — abandons the law — goes to Paris — loses
his patrimony Pages 81-90

CHAPTER VII

IN SEARCH OF A PROFESSION (1832-1836)

Thackeray's thoughts incline to literature — Becomes proprietor
and editor of the National Standard — his contributions to that
paper — the failure of the National Standard — the story of the
venture related in " Lovel the Widower" — he proposes to be-
come a painter — and studies at Paris — his fondness for Paris —
his first visit to that city — Eyre Evans Crowe and his family —
Thackeray on the artist's life at Paris — abandons painting for
caricature — "Flore et Zephyr" — offers to illustrate "Pickwick"
— "Mr. Pickwick's lucky escape" — illustrates most of his own
books — aware of the limitations of his art — Charlotte Bronte on
Thackeray as illustrator ....... gi-iii

CHAPTER VIII

MARRIAGE (1836-1840)

Major Carmichael-Smyth founds the Cottstittdiorial newspaper —
and appoints Thackeray Paris Correspondent — Thackeray
marries Isabella Getkin Creagh Shawe at Paris — works on
GalignanVs Messenger — happy days — "Bouillabaisse" — sum-
moned to London to manage the Cojistitiitional — the failure of
the Constitutional — Thackeray and his wife stay with his
mother — takes a house in Great Coram Street, Bloomsbury —
the birth of his two eldest daughters — Bloomsbury in his books
— the Foundling hospital — his fondness for children — the British
Museum — "Going to see a Man Hanged" — his third daughter
born — his wife's illness — the compulsory separation — the happi-
ness of his brief married life — his love for his children . 1 12-128

CHAPTER IX

IN GRUB STREET (1837-1846)

Writes for the Times — and for Erasers Magazine — his earliest con-
tributions io Fraser''s Magazine — the authorship of "Elizabeth
Brownrigge " — and the resemblance between that story and
"Catherine" — " Fashnable Fax and Polite Annygoats " — Mr.
Yellowplush's other papers — strikes for higher pay — his qualifi-

i.-b

xviii CONTENTS

cations as a writer for the periodical press — his knowledge of
art and foreign languages — suggests himself for the editorship
of the Foreign Quarterly Reviciu — and as a contributor to Black-
woocTs Magazhie — Sir Henry Cole's tribute to his powers — the
Anti-Corn Law Circular — "The Pen and the Album" — writes
for many periodicals — contributions to Fraser's Magazine —
" The Paris Sketch Book" — " The Second Funeral of Napoleon"
— replies to the Times' criticism of that book — " Comic Tales
and Sketches " — " The Irish Sketch Book " — stays with Charles
Lever at Templeogue — Thackeray on the Irish — the " Life of
Talleyrand" — "Barry Lyndon" — "From Cornhill to Grand
Cairo " — Carlyle resents Thackeray accepting a free passage —
Thackeray's reply — " Titmarsh at Jerusalem" — Thackeray's
religion — his indignation with Mrs. Trollope's interpretation of
the Scriptures— his dislike of the Jews and the Roman Catholics
— his attitude towards " Papal Aggression " — his attack on
asceticism — his doubts of the infallibility of the Bible— his deep
sense of religion — his fearless outlook on death . . Pages 129-158

CHAPTER X

ON PICTURES AND BOOKS

The savagery of criticism in the earlier decades of the nineteenth
century — Thackeray's papers on art — his outspokenness — and
the anger of the painters — his opinion of " Christian " or
"Catholic" art — and of the historical school of painting — his
appreciation of "The Fighting Tdm<5raire" — and of George
Cruikshank — miscellaneous criticism of books — on Byron — on
the annuals — his attack on Ainsworth — his explanation — on the
Newgate school of fiction — " Catherine" — its purpose — and the
author's criticism of his book — his savage attacks on Bulwer-
Lytton — and his subsequent cry of " Peccavi " — "Mr. Yellow-
plush's Ajew " — his appreciation of many contemporary writers
— Scott and Dumas his favourite novelists — his opinions of
Swift, Sterne, Addison, Steele, Goldsmith, Prior and Gay —
of Smollett and Fielding — his love for kindly writers — and
happy endings ......... 159-182

CHAPTER XI

THACKERAY AND THE PUBLIC (1846)

Thackeray's success with the " Yellowplush Papers" in England
and America — his opinion of "The Great Hoggarty Diamond"
— and John Sterling's appreciation of that story — Thackeray's
position in the literary world in 1843 — his income — his belief in

CONTENTS xix

his gift of writing — some reasons why he did not earlier become
famous — his use of pseudonyms — his best work not published
in book-form — he runs counter to the feeling of the public — his
earlier works considered — the " Yellowplush Correspondence"
—"Catherine"— "A Shabby Genteel Story" — the " Fitz-
Boodle Papers " — " Barry Lyndon " .... Pa^^s 183-200

CHAPTER XII

MAN ABOUT TOWN

Thackeray, after his wife's illness, leaves Great Coram Street —
and lives in apartments in Jermyn Street — becomes a frequenter
of clubs — the Garrick — the Reform — the Atheneeum — his de-
scription of Bohemia — and his visits to it — haunts that have
disappeared — the "Coal Hole" — the "Cyder Cellars" — and a
description of it in " Pendennis " — "Evans's" — Colonel New-
come at the "Cave of Harmony" — the Fielding Club — Our
Club — Thackeray's love of " the play " — some visits to the
theatre as a boy — and at Weimar — the theatre in his writings —
" The Wolves and the Lamb " 201-223

CHAPTER XIII

"VANITY FAIR" (1847-1848)

Thackeray's position in literary circles in 1846 — his connection with
Punch — his early contributions to that periodical — the pro-
prietors dissatisfied with " Miss Tickletoby's Lectures" — which
were therefore discontinued — Thackeray takes his place at the
Round Table, 1843 — "Jeames's Diary" attracts attention —
"The Snobs of England" — and the influence of these papers
on Thackeray's reputation — Thackeray determined to make a
bid for fame — " Vanity Fair" begun — the MS. of the novel not
" hawked round the town " — accepted by Messrs. Bradbury and
Evans — Thackeray's letters to Aytoun in January 1847 —
" Vanity Fair " published in monthly numbers — its sales in-
crease — Thackeray's works never so popular as those of
Dickens — " Currer Bell" dedicates "Jane Eyre" to Thackeray
— Abraham Hayward praises " Vanity Fair" in the Edinburgh
Review — the charge of cynicism brought against Thackeray —
his defence — his philosophy — the text from which he preached —
"Vanitas Vanitatum " — the gospel of love — Thackeray's char-
acter criticised by his contemporaries — he created no heroes
or heroines — his desire to draw men and women — his char-
acters human — his portrait gallery — the novelist's depredators —
his faults as a novelist — his asides— his method of writing — his
style — his place in English literature ..... 224-259

XX CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIV

IN SOCIETY

Thackeray lionised by society — his amusement at being so treated
— applause an incentive to him — society provides material for
his writings — speech-making — his "smash" at a Literary Fund
Dinner — and at Manchester — his speech at the banquet given
on his departure for America, 1855 — his belief that practice in
speaking would enable him to express his opinions in the House
of Commons — charged with tuft-hunting — the disadvantages of
success — he loses old friends — much improved by success —
tributes by Albert Smith, John Hollingshead, Frederick Locker-
Lampson, Henry Vizetelly- — Dr. John Brown and the Rev.
Whitwell Elwin — attacks on him — his moods — Mrs. J. T. Fields'
opinion of him — his charity — and his kindness — interests himself
in Louis Marvy and others — his sh3'ness — and his occasional
savagery — his sense of fun — his conversation — some bons mots
and impromptus — sadness the keynote to his character Pages 260-281

CHAPTER XV

PUNCH (1 847-1 854)

Thackeray's earnings in 1848 — success of "Vanity Fair" in book-
form — Thackeray resigns the assistant -editorship of the
Examiner — and retires from the staff of Eraser's Magazine —
his Christmas Books — the Times' attack on "The Kickleburys
on the Rhine" — and Thackeray's reply, "An Essay on Thunder
and Small Beer " — Thackeray sensitive to criticism — but makes
jokes at his own expense — writes again for the Morning Chronicle
— his contributions to Punch from 1847 — " Punch's Prize Novel-
ists" — " Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man About Town" —
the " Proser Papers" — withdraws from Punch in 1S54 — his
reference to his withdrawal in his article on John Leech — a slip
of the pen — his letter to the proprietors of Punch concerning his
resignation — he attends the dinners to the end — his indebtedness
to Punch — Punch's tribute to him — and his to Punch — his friends
and the staff — Douglas Jerrold — Thackeray's Ballads — " Bow
Street Ballads" — "Lyra Hibernica " — his limitations as a
writer of verse — his sense of parody — and of tenderness —
"The Cane-Bottomed Chair"— "St. Sophia of Kioff"— "The
Chronicle of the Drum " — his merits as a writer of light and
humorous verse ......... 282-306

CONTENTS xxi

CHAPTER XVI

"PENDENNIS" (1849-1850)

Thackeray living at No. 88, St. James's Street — takes a house,
No. 13 (now 16), Young- Street, Kensington — and has his
daughters brought to him there — the greater part of "Vanity
Fair" written in that house — his acquaintance with Charlotte
Bronte — her appreciation of him — a dismal dinner party — "The
Last Sketch " — Thackeray dissatisfied with his financial pros-
pects — endeavours to obtain the secretaryship of the Post Office
— and, failing, tries to get a magistracy — Horace Smith — the
Misses Smith and " Pendennis " — the publication of " Pen-
dennis" begun November 1848 — interrupted by a serious illness
— some opinions of the earlier parts of the novel — Thackeray's
recovery — " Pendennis " autobiographical in parts — some proto-
types of the characters in "Vanity Fair" — of Sir Pitt Crawley,
Lord Steyne, and Becky Sharp — some prototypes of the charac-
ters in "Pendennis" — of Warrington, Foker, and Shandon —
"The Dignity of Literature" — Thackeray on the responsibility
of an author — the literary man's point of honour . Pages 307-329

CHAPTER XVII

"THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS" AND "ESMOND"
(1851-1852)

The last number of " Pendennis" issued — Thackeray proposes to
lecture — his friends' objections — a subject found in "The English
Humourists of the Eighteenth Century" — the first lecture at
Willis's Rooms — Thackeray's nervousness — accounts of his
reading — the audiences — a furore for the lectures — Thackeray
invited to deliver them in England and America — he writes
"Esmond" — refuses to contribute to "Social Zoologies" —
George M. Smith secures the publishing rights of " Esmond " —
Thackeray's publishers — Thackeray's comments on " Esmond"
— "Esmond's " place in literature — Thackeray and his daughters
go abroad — he returns to London — prepares for the American
lecture tour ......... 330-342

xxii CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII

FIRST VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES (1852-1853)

Thackeray attacked in an American paper before he sails — a fair
chance given him on arrival — his first dinner at Boston — in New
York — his great popularity in the United States — his books
better known there than in England — on pirated editions —
Thackeray likes America and Americans — his objections to
personal journalism in the United States — "Mr. Thackeray in
the United States " — his lectures in New York — and elsewhere
— "Charity and Humour" — tired of acting the lion — his sudden
departure for England Pages 343-357

ILLUSTRATIONS

William Makepeace Thackeray . . Frontispiece

From an unpublished drawing by Daniel Maclise, circa l8jS- {.By per-
mission of Majtr William H. Lambert.')

Walpole House, Chiswick Mall, London . to face page 20

William Makepeace Thackeray . . . . 22

From a bust by J. Devile, circa J822, in the National Portrait Gallery.

The Rev. Edward Penny's House, Wilderness Row, Clerken-

WELL . . . . ... 24

Where Thackeray lived when he was first at the Charterhouse.

The Charterhouse . . . ... 34

Larkbeare, Ottery St. Mary . . ... 42

The house 0/ Major and Mrs. Cannichael-Smyih. From a photograph by
H. D. Badcock.

Trinity College, Cambridge . . ... 48

Showing Thackeray's room on the left oj the tower.

No. 2, Brick Court, Temple, London . . . . 82

No. 18, Albion Street, Hyde Park, London . . .116

Where Thackeray and his wife stayed with Major and Mrs. Carmichael-
Smyth in 1837.

No. 13, Great Coram Street, Brunswick Square, London . n8

Where Thackeray and his wife lived, 1837-184.0.

The Fraserians . . . ... 130

Frojn a drawing by Daniel Maclise, 1833.

William Makepeace Thackeray . ... i6o

From an unpublished water-colour drawing by D. Dighton (f) {By per-
mission of Major William H. Lambert.)

xxiii

xxiv ILLUSTRATIONS

Facsimile of Thackeray's Handwriting. A Page of a Letter

TO T. W. GiBBS, September 12, 1851 . . to face page 178

From the original in the British Museum.

W. M. Thackeray, M. J, Higgins, and Henry Reeve . . 202

From an unpublished pencil sketch by Richard Doyle, in the British
Museum.

Thackeray at the Play , . ... 216

From a sketch by Frederick Walker, in the " Cornhill Magazine," Feb-
ruary, l8bl.

William Makepeace Thackeray . ... 224

From a drawing by Count D'Orsay, 184S. (By permission of Major
William H. Lambert.)

William Makepeace Thackeray . ... 282

From a painting by Samuel Laurence, in the National Po7-trait Gallery.

Mr. Punch's Fancy Ball . . ... 290

From a drawing by John Leech, in " Punch" January g, 1847.

William Makepeace Thackeray . ... 308

From an unpublished drawing by W. Drujnmond, l8^0. {By permission
0/ Major William H. Lambert.)

No. 13 (now 16), Young Street, Kensington, London . . 310

Where Thackeray lir'ed, 1846-1853.

William Makepeace Thackeray . ... 330

From a pencil sketch by Richard Doyle, in the British Museum.

Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh, as he appeared at Willis's

Rooms in his celebrated character of Mr. Thackeray . 336

From a sketch by John Leech, in the '^ Month," July, iSjl.

IN TEXT

The Sad Jester . . . ... 357

A sketch by Thackeray {'^Vanity Fair," chap. VIII.).

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

I.— B

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE

THACKERAY

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

The Thackeray family — John de Thackwra — William de Thackwra
— Robert Thackra — Walter Thackeray of Hampsthwaite — Elias
Thackeray — Archdeacon Thackeray — his sons and daughters — the
Rev. Elias Thackeray, Vicar of Dundalk — and Thackeray's tribute
to him in "The Irish Sketch Book" — the Archdeacon's fifth son —
and his family — William Makepeace Thackeray, grandfather of
the novelist — the Thackerays a typical Anglo-Indian family — the
novelist's uncles and aunts — his cousin Sir Richmond Shakespear —
Richmond Thackeray and Anne Becher, the novelist's parents — the
birth of Thackeray.

THE family of the Thackerays has been traced
back to the fourteenth century, when there
was a John de Thackwra who held of the
Abbot of St. Mary of Fountains a dwelling-
house and thirty acres of land at Hartwich in 1336,
and, twenty-five years after, a William de Thackwra,
who was tenant at will of a messuage and twenty-one
acres at the same place. A century later, the family
records note, a Robert Thackra kept the Grange of
Brimham for the convent, and subsequently an Edward

4 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Thacquarye held houses and land from the same con-
vent. They were a prolific race, these de Thackwras,
Thackras, and Thacquaryes, who early in the seven-
teenth century began to adopt the now familiar form of
the surname. Then Walter Thackeray established
himself at Hampsthwaite, a hamlet on the Nidd, near
the forest of Knaresborough, in the West Riding of
Yorkshire, and there for many decades the family re-
mained, until this yeoman branch of the line came to
an end with the death of Thomas Thackeray in 1804,
seven years before the birth of the novelist.

Long before this a scion of the race, one Elias
Thackeray, more restless or more ambitious than the
rest, had left the homestead, and gone to Christ's
College, Cambridge, where fortune smiled upon him,
for, becoming M.A. in 1709, he was two years after
appointed to the living of Hawkhurst in the Arch-
deaconry of Richmond, Yorkshire. Not unmindful
of the claims of his kindred, he charged himself with
the welfare of a twelve-year-old nephew, Thomas, the
son of his brother Timothy, whom in January 1706 he
contrived to place on the foundation at Eton. There
the lad remained for six years, when he won a foun-
dation scholarship at King's College, Cambridge,
where he proceeded to a fellowship in 1715. Thomas
then, for a while, returned to his old school as an
assistant master, and, after an unsuccessful application
in 1744 for the provostship of King's, in 1746 was
appointed headmaster of Harrow. Harrow school, in
spite of traditions dating back for two hundred years,
was at that time in a sad way, having been practically
ruined under the regime of a drunken, disorderly, idle

INTRODUCTORY 5

principal ; and when Tliomas began his reign there
were but thirty boys — a number that under his able
rule was rapidly increased to one hundred and thirty.
"Dr. Thackeray," said Dr. Parr, one of his pupils,
''though a strict disciplinarian, possessed much kind-
ness of temper, and much suavity of manner. I have
reason to love and revere him as a father as well as a
master." He has been described also by Dr. Edmund
Pyle, who wrote him down "a great scholar in the Eton
way, and a good one in every way ; and a true Whig."
The worthy Doctor, in 1730, at the age of thirty-five,
had married Ann (a daughter of John Woodward,
Lord of the Manor of Butler's Marston, Warwickshire),
who, during the next twenty years, bore six sons and
ten daughters, and survived until 1797. He was
in 1748 appointed chaplain to Frederick, Prince of
Wales, and was marked out for further preferment.
''The Bishop of Winchester (Benjamin Hoadly) never
saw this man in his life, but had heard so much good
of him that he resolved to serve him some way or
other, if ever he could, but said nothing to anybody,"
Dr. Pyle wrote in 1753. "On Friday last he sent
for this Dr. Thackeray, and when he came into the
room my lord gave him a parchment, and told him
he had long heard of his good character, and long
been afraid he should never be able to give him any
serviceable proof of the good opinion he had conceived
of him ; that what he had put into his hands was the
Archdeaconry of Surrey, which he hoped would be
acceptable to him, as he might perform the duty of it
yearly at the time of his leisure in the Easter holidays.
Dr. Thackeray was so surprised and overcome with

6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
this extraordinary manner of doing him a favour, that
he was very near fainting as he was giving him institu-
tion." Dr. Thackeray held the archdeaconry for the
remaining seven years of his life.

It is only necessary here to mention three sons of Dr.
Thackeray. The fourth, another Thomas (i 736-1 806),
practised surgery at Cambridge and left issue fifteen
children ; of whom one daughter, Jane Townley,
married George Prynne, the political economist; a son,
William Makepeace,^ settled as a physician at Chester,
and another, Elias, took orders and became Vicar
of Dundalk. To this last his relative, the novelist,
paid tribute in ''The Irish Sketch Book" : —

I was so lucky as to have an introduction to the
Vicar of Dundalk, which that gentleman's kind and
generous nature interpreted into a claim for unlimited
hospitality ; and he was good enough to consider
himself not only bound to receive me, but to give up
previous engagements abroad in order to do so.
I need not say that it afforded me sincere pleasure to
witness, for a couple of days, his labours among his
people ; and indeed it was a delightful occupation to
watch both flock and pastor. The world is a wicked,
selfish, abominable place, as the parson tells us ; but
his reverence comes out of his pulpit and gives the
flattest contradiction to his doctrine, busying himself
with kind actions from morning till night, denying to
himself, generous to others, preaching the truth to
young and old, clothing the naked, feeding the
hungry, consoling the wretched, and giving hope
to the sick. 2

The fifth son of Dr. Thackeray was a physician at
Windsor, and in the autobiography of Mrs. Papendiek,

^ The name Makepeace is said to have been derived from an ancestor
who suffered at the stake for his faith in the "good old days" of Queen
Mary. ^ Chap. xxvi.

INTRODUCTORY 7

Assistant-Keeper of the Wardrobe and Reader to
Queen Charlotte, may be read the story of his run-
away marriage, his early death, and his widow's strug-
gles to bring up her seven children. One of these was
on the foundation at Eton ; another was a midship-
man in the navy ; and a third son, George, became
Provost of King's College, Cambridge.

Dr. Thackeray's youngest child, William Make-
peace, grandfather of the novelist, born in 1749,
entered the East India Company's service. After a
preliminary training in book-keeping, proficiency in
which was essential for employment in John Com-
pany's service, young William sailed in the Lord
Camden for Calcutta. His career in India was from
the outset successful. On his arrival, placed in the
Secretary's office with a salary of ;^8o, his zeal at once
attracted the notice of Cartier, Governor of Bengal,
with the result that within twelve months he was made
assistant-treasurer or cash-keeper at a considerably
increased stipend. In 1771 he was appointed Factor
and Fourth in Council at Dacca, where he set up house
with two sisters whom his advancement enabled him to
summon from home.^ Warren Hastings made him

^ These sisters were Jane and Henrietta, then aged respectively
thirty-two and twenty-two. Jane married on October i6, 1772, Major
James Rennell, the geographer ; and later in the year Henrietta married
from her sister's new home James Harris, the head of the East India
Company's civil service in Eastern Bengal. The Rennells did not go to
England until 1777, after the loss of their first-born ; but the Harrises
returned forthwith. Harris purchased a country seat near Chelmsford
and a town house in Great Ormond Street, then a more fashionable
district than now ; but when he died it was found his cxtravag'ance had
made deep inroads into his fortune, although enough was left for his
widow to live comfortably at Hadley, and to provide an excellent educa-
tion for the children.

8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Collector of the frontier province of Sylhet, and in
1774 called him back to Dacca as Third in Council.

Two years later William Makepeace married Amelia,
daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Richmond Webb,
a descendant of the victor of Weynendal, whom
Thackeray has portrayed in "Esmond," and, having
during his nine and a half years' sojourn in the East
realised a competence, soon after sailed with his
eighteen-year-old bride for England. The young
couple settled down at Hadley, near Chipping Barnet,
and for the rest of their days led a simple, hospitable
country life. Mrs. Thackeray died in 1810, and three
years later was followed to the grave by her husband,
who was buried under the shadow of the church of
Monken Hadley, a picturesque building upon the
tower of which may still be seen the battered frag-
ments of an old beacon cage.

William Makepeace it was who founded the great
Anglo-Indian Thackeray family which. Sir William
Hunter says, ''formed a typical family of the Bengal
Service in the days of John Company, threw out
branches into the sister services, military and medical,
and by a network of intermarriages created for them-
selves a ruling connection both in India and in the
Court of Directors at home."i It has already been
mentioned how the sisters who went out to him
married Anglo-Indians, and of the twelve children of
his marriage, one of whom died in infancy, nine
went Eastward Ho ! Four sons entered the Madras
and Bengal civil services, a fifth entered the Indian
army, a sixth became a barrister and journalist at Cal-

1 Sir W. W. Hunter : The Thacherays in India.

INTRODUCTORY 9

cutta ; while two daughters married Bengal civilians,
and a third became the wife of the Attorney-General
in Ceylon.

Of these children, one of them the father of the
novelist, brief mention must be made. The eldest,
William Makepeace, was born in 1778, and in his
twentieth year was sent to Madras, where he was the
first civilian to secure a reward (under the rules of
1797, framed for the encouragement of the study of
Oriental languages) for proficiency in Telugu. His
rise, like that of his father, was rapid. By Lord Clive
he was appointed translator at head-quarters ; then,
assistant to Sir Thomas Munro, Governor of the
province ; and, later, the first judge of a new court
established at Masulipatam. He became a member of
the Board of Revenue in 1806, and four years after was
promoted to be Chief Secretary to the Madras Govern-
ment. His health broke down in 1813, and he went
to England for a while, when the Court of Directors
took the opportunity to commend his services in a
despatch. He returned to India in 1816, and was
appointed a provisional Member of Council and Presi-
dent of the Board of Revenue in June 1820 ; but the
long sojourn in a tropical climate had undermined his
constitution, and he did not live long to enjoy his
honours. He died on January 11, 1823, while on a sea
voyage undertaken in the hope of restoring his
health.

Webb Thackeray, who in 1806, at the age of
eighteen, went out to Madras as a writer, died within
a year of his arrival. In the same service as the two
brothers already mentioned was the fifth son, St. John,

10 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

who, born in 1791, was one of the first civilians sent
out by the East India College that later developed into
Haileybury. He went to Madras in 1809, a-^d was
killed at Kittur Fort where, hoping to bring the in-
surgents to terms, he advanced without a flag of truce
and was fired upon. Thomas, the fourth son, entered
the Bengal army, and was killed in the Nepal War in
18 14, in an heroic endeavour to cover the retreat of
some British troops with his Light Company against
*'a strong and overpowering column of Gurkhas,"
which called forth the highest encomiums in despatches
from the commander-in-chief and the Government of
India. Charles, the youngest, became a barrister at
Calcutta, but obtaining little practice, wrote leading
articles for the Englishman and other papers. He
was the most brilliant of the brothers, but, succumb-
ing to a passion for drink, he sank into an obscure
grave in the mid forties. The stay-at-home (sixth)
son, Francis (1793-1842), took holy orders, and retired
to a Herefordshire parish, where he wrote several
books, including a work on the ''State of Ancient
Britain under the Roman Emperors" and the better
known "History of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham,"
quoted repeatedly by Carlyle in '' Frederick the
Great," and reviewed by Macaulay, who censured
what he considered the author's extravagant praise
of his hero.

The two sisters who went out in 1802 to join their
brother Richmond married soon after their arrival :
Augusta to ''her brother's dearest friend," Mr. Elliott,
a civilian ; Emily (who died in India) to John Talbot
Shakespear. Of the latter alliance came nine children.

INTRODUCTORY ii

the eldest of whom, Colonel John Dowdeswell Shake-
spear, ''a noble, chivalrous figure," was regarded by
the family as the prototype of Colonel Newcome. A
younger son was Colonel Sir Richmond Shakespear,
who became Agent to the Governor-General for Central
India, and, just before his death in 1861, was appointed
by Lord Canning to the Chief Commissionership of
Mysore. It was to this cousin that the novelist made
appreciative reference in a " Roundabout Paper."

*'Can I do anything for you?" I remember the
kind fellow asking. He was always asking that
question : of all kinsmen ; of all widows and orphans;
of all the poor ; of young men who might need
his purse or his service. I saw a young officer
yesterday to whom the first words Sir Richmond
Shakespear wrote on his arrival in India were, " Can
I do anything for you ? " His purse was at the
command of all. His kind hand was always open.
It was a gracious fate which sent him to rescue
widows and captives. Where could they have had
a champion more chivalrous, a protector more loving
and tender?^

Richmond, the second son, and father of the novelist,
was born at South Mimms, on September i, 1781.2
Sent to Eton at the age of ten, he remained there
until 1796, when, being nominated to a writership in
the Bengal Civil Service, he left school to go through
the usual training in merchants' accounts. He arrived
in Calcutta in 1798, studied at Fort William College,

^ On Letts' s Diary.

- Sir William Hunter has pointed out that the tombstone says
Richmond Thackeray died on September 13, 1815, aged thirty-two
years, ten months, and twenty-three days, which would make the birth-
day October 21, 1782, instead of September i, 1781, as stated in the
Family Book of the Thackerays.

12 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
and soon, as a reward for proficiency in Arabic and
Persian, was appointed Collector of Midnapur. He
was removed to Birbhum in 1803, three years after was
appointed Judge of Ramgarh, and in 1807 was pro-
moted to be Secretary of the Bengal Board of Revenue.
From this time forth, with the exception of some
months during which he acted as Judge of Midnapur,
he remained in the capital, where, by virtue of his
personal charm and his artistic and musical tastes, he
became a noted personage in the little social world
that flourished there.

At Calcutta Richmond met, fell in love with, and
married on October 13, 1810, one of the reigning
beauties, Anne Becher, descended from an old Bengal
civilian family, of whom, perhaps, the most distin-
guished member was Richard Becher, who held high
office when Clive ruled India.^ In the following
December Richmond was promoted to be Collector of
the Twenty-four Parganas, one of the prizes of the
Bengal service, when he and his young wife moved
to the official residence at Alipur, which was so close
to the city as not to interfere with their social life.
There, on July 18, 181 1, was born their only child,
William Makepeace.

^ Richard Becher retired in 1774, and returned to England, but seven
years later lost his fortune in the endeavour to help a friend, whereupon
the Court of Directors gave him a compassionate appointment as head
of the Calcutta mint. But the blow was too much for him and he died,
a disappointed old man, on November 17, 1782. "I wonder," says Sir
William Hunter, " if Thackeray had that sad story of his mother's kins-
man in mind when he touched off, with so tender a pathos, Colonel New-
come's loss of fortune in old age."

CHAPTER II

CHILDHOOD (1811-1822)

Death of Richmond Thackeray — Thackeray and Richmond Shakespear
sent to England, 1817 — Thackeray's recollection of India — his subse-
quent acquaintance with Anglo-Indians — his mother's teachings —
their affection for each other — her marriage with Major Carmichael-
Smyth — Major and Mrs. Carmichael-Smyth return to England, 182 1
— Thackeray's journey from India to England — he sees Napoleon at
St. Helena — stays with his guardian, Peter Moore, at Hadley — and
afterwards with Mrs. Becher at Fareham — goes to school at
Southampton — his unhappiness there — sent to Dr. Turner's school at
Chiswick — Walpole House and Miss Pinkerton's Academy.

FOUR years after the birth of his son Richmond
Thackeray died. His widow remained in
India and kept the little boy with her until
early in the year 1817, when she had to make
the sacrifice exacted from all English parents resident
in hot climates and send the boy to England. This
was William Makepeace's first parting with his mother,
and though he was but five years old, not the novelty
of the voyage, nor the company of his cousin and play-
mate, Richmond Shakespear, obliterated the memory
of the last good-bye : so deep an impression did it make
upon him, that more than two score years after he could
still conjure up the moment of his departure.

In one of the stories by the present writer, a man
is described tottering *' up the steps of the ghaut,"
having just parted with his child, whom he is
despatching to England from India. I wrote this,

13

14 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [iSn

remembering in long, long distant days, such a
ghaut, or river-stair, at Calcutta ; and a day when,
down those steps, to a boat which was in waiting,
came two children, whose mothers remained on the
shore. One of these ladies was never to see her boy
more. ^

The lad carried with him some dim impressions
of the East, of a few people and some places. '*My
native Gunga I remember quite well, and the sense of
it as being quite friendly and beautiful," he told
Whitwell Elwin; " but the Anglo-Indians who figure
prominently in some of his novels were, of course,
the outcome of his subsequent acquaintance with
his many relations and friends, civilian and military,
who had passed the greater portion of their lives in
building up the British Empire in that vast southern
peninsula. Thackeray met them and their kind at the
Oriental Club in Hanover Square, and made no secret
that he drew upon them for some of his characters. '* I
see where you got your Colonel Newcome," said Mr.
Fremantle Carmichael to the novelist one day. "To
be sure you would," was the reply, ''only I had to
Angelicise the old boys a little. "^

The principal memory Thackeray brought away from
his birthplace was that of his beautiful, kindly mother,
whose influence remained with him through life. His
pride of birth and love of romance may have come to
him, through his grandmother, Amelia Richmond
Webb, from the Constables of Richmond and Lords of

^ On Letts's Diary. The "story by the present writer" is " Philip "
(chap, xxviii), the lady who died was Mrs. Shakespear.

"^ Rev. Whitwell Elwin : "Thackeray's Boyhood" (Monthly Review,
June, 1904, p. 162),

' A. F. Baillie : The Oriental Club in Ha7wver Square.

i8n] EARLY IMPRESSIONS 15

Burton, although the latter quality was also inherent in
his uncle, Francis Thackeray, who delighted the family
circle with improvised fairy tales ; his hatred of shams
and snobbishness doubtless came to him direct from
his distant paternal ancestors of the yeoman stock of
Hampsthwaite ; and perhaps the later generations of
the Thackerays, men who lived by their brain, built
roads and administered justice in a distant land, and
fought and died for their country, supplied the stronger
fibres of his nature. From his father, it has been sug-
gested, he may have inherited a love for luxury, as well
as a taste for art and letters ; from his mother he learnt
that reverence for womanhood and the incalculable value
of love which was a distinguishing trait of his life and
inspired many of the finest passages in his works, per-
haps reaching its highest expression in the scene that
closes with the death of Helen Pendennis. These
principles that he drank in at his mother's knee, when
he came to man's estate he was, indeed, never weary of
preaching.

Canst thou, O friendly reader, count upon the
fidelity of an artless heart or two, and reckon among
the blessings which Heaven hath bestowed upon thee
the love of faithful women ? Purify thine own heart,
and try to make it worthy of theirs. All the prizes
of life are nothing compared to that one. All the
rewards of ambition, wealth, pleasure, only vanity
and disappointment grasped at greedily and fought
for fiercely, and over and over again found worth-
less by the weary winners.

Thackeray loved his mother and was as proud of her
as ever she was of him, and his only complaint was
that she would always endeavour to make his friends

i6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1811-

realise that her son was "the divinest creature in the
world." She was, her eldest grand-daughter has told
us, a woman of "strong feeling, somewhat imperious,
with a passionate love for little children, and with
extraordinary sympathy and enthusiasm for anyone
in trouble,"^ and, according to Herman Merivale, who
knew her in her later years, she was one of the
handsomest old ladies in the world, with great dark
eyebrows and beautiful white hair.^ Thackeray, aged
six, wrote little notes to his "dear Mama" in India,
and, aged seven, begged her to return to Eng-
land with Major Henry Carmichael-Smyth, of the
Royal (Bengal) Engineers, whom she had recently
married. Three years later, in 182 1, she came, to his
great joy= "He had a perfect memory of me," Mrs.
Carmichael-Smyth said, delighted to find him sturdy
and tall for his age. " He could not speak, but kissed
me again and again." Thackeray's relations with his
mother were always intimate, and the only difference
that ever arose between them was on religion, Mrs.
Carmichael-Smyth belonging to the evangelical section
of the Church.

While at Charterhouse Thackeray wrote to her
regularly ; and from Cambridge and during his con-
tinental rambles he never failed to send long letters,
usually illustrated with amusing sketches. He named
his eldest daughter Anne after her, and, when Major
Carmichael-Smyth died, his house became her home.
She outlived her famous son by a year, and was buried
on Christmas Eve 1864, the first anniversary of his death.

' Lady Ritchie : Chapters from Some Me7noirs, ■^. 15.
2 Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 39.

i822] ARRIVES IN ENGLAND 17

Thackeray has placed on record some of his earliest
memories, dating so far back as his voyage from India.

When I first saw England, she was in mourning
for the young Princess Charlotte, the hope of the
Empire. I came from India as a child, and our ship
touched at an island (St. Helena) on the way home,
where my black servant took me a long walk over
rocks and hills until we reached a garden, where we
saw a man walking. ''That is he," cried the black
man: "that is Bonaparte! He eats three sheep
every day, and all the children he can lay hands on."
There were people in the British dominions besides
that poor Calcutta serving-man, with an equal horror
of the Corsican ogre. With the same childish
attendant, I remember peeping through the colon-
nade at Carlton House, and seeing the abode of the
great Prince Regent. I can yet see the Guards
pacing before the gates of the Palace. The palace !
What palace? The palace exists no more than the
palace of Nebuchadnezzar. It is but a name now.^

From the above passage it is possible approximately
to fix the date of the little boy's arrival in England :
Princess Charlotte died on November 6, 18 17. He
was taken at once to his guardian and great-uncle,
Peter Moore, the husband of Sarah Richmond Webb
(Amelia's sister). Lord of the Manor of Hadley, where
there was an Anglo-Indian colony connected with the
Thackerays. William Makepeace the first had settled
there, and, after the death of her husband, Mrs. Harris
established herself in her brother's neighbourhood,
while subsequently another Thackeray became rector of
the parish. Moore, however, was the great man there.
In a few years he had made an ample fortune in India
and at the age of thirty returned to England, where he

^ The Four Georges — George the Third.
I.-C

i8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY dSn-

threw himself into the political arena, sided with Burke
and Sheridan against Warren Hastings, was returned
as member of Parliament for Tewkesbury in 1796, and
in 1803, after a contest that cost him ;^25,ooo, was
elected at Coventry, which constituency he represented
through six parliaments. He became known as a most
adroit manager of private bills ; but unfortunately he
was careless as to the financial stability of the com-
panies to which he gave the support of his name, and,
when in 1825 there was a general collapse of the
properties with which he was associated, he had to fly
to Dieppe to escape arrest. He was, however, an
honest man ; gave up nearly all his property to the
creditors of the various ventures ; and died, **a broken
exile," at Abbeville, on May 5, 1828, aged seventy-five.
Moore was kind to his ward, whose impressions of him
were tender ; and doubtless the sudden transformation
of the wealthy and influential Member of Parliament
into the unhappy bankrupt old man, occurring at an
age when a lad is susceptible, supplied some touches
to the narrative of the last days of Colonel Newcome,
and provided the future novelist's first acquaintance

with

the old old tale

Of Folly, Fortune, Glory, Ruin.

When Thackeray was not at Hadley he stayed at
Fareham in Hampshire in the care of his mother's
grandmother and aunt — "Aunt Becher," Lady Ritchie
says she called the latter, *' but her other name I do
believe was Miss Martha Honeyman." The contrast
between the splendour of the Hadley mansion and the
simplicity of the house in the Fareham High Street

1822] HIS FIRST SCHOOL 19

must have impressed itself on the observant lad, who
began early in life to store up a mass of material
which he was subsequently to turn to such excellent
use ; but he was as happy in one place as the other,
and of the humbler home in the small Cranford-like
town he has left a pretty picture.

She was eighty years of age then. A most lovely
and picturesque old lady, with a long tortoiseshell
cane, with a little puff, or tour^ of snow-white (or
was it powdered?) hair under her cap, with the
prettiest little black velvet slippers and high heels
you ever saw. She had a grandson, a lieutenant in
the navy ; son of her son, a captain in the navy ;
grandson of her husband, a captain in the navy. She
lived for scores and scores of years in a dear little old
Hampshire town inhabited by the wives, widows,
daughters of navy captains, admirals, lieutenants.^

The lad had little to complain of until his education
began, when his lot was unfortunate. He was sent first
to a small school at Southampton.

We Indian children [i.e. Richmond Shakespear
and himself] were consigned to a school of which our
deluded parents had heard a favourable report, but
which was governed by a horrible little tyrant, who
made our young lives so miserable that I remember
kneeling by my little bed of a night, and saying,
'' Pray God, I may dream of my mother. "^

How he hated the place, and how miserable he was
there, he never forgot to the end of his days, and more
than once towards the end of his life he wrote of it.

That first night at school — hard bed, hard words,
strange boys bullying, and laughing, and jarring
you with their hateful merriment — as for the first
night at a strange school, we most of us remember
what that is. And the first is not the worst, my boys,

1 0}i a Peal of Bells. » On Lett^s Diary,

20 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822

there's the rub.^ . . . What a dreadful place that
private school was ; cold, chilblains, bad dinners,
not enough victuals, and caning awful I^

He was soon taken from this place and sent to a school
at Chiswick, kept by a Dr. Turner, a distant relative.
From there at the instigation of his aunt, Mrs. Ritchie,
who lived close by, he might write to his mother that
he was happy because ''there are so many good boys
to play with " ; but, as a matter of fact, so miserable
was the sensitive little man that he made an attempt
to run away, and, in later days, when driving to
Richmond, would point to that end of Chiswick Lane
which abuts on the wide road to Hammersmith where,
frightened, he turned back, fortunately to arrive at the
house without his absence being noted. The school
occupied the historic Walpole House, on Chiswick
Mall, and figured subsequently as Miss Pinkerton's
Academy in "Vanity Fair." An illustration at the end
of the first chapter of that novel shows the fine iron
gates of the Academy, and, just outside, a coach, with
Sambo of the bandy legs hanging on behind, taking
away Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley, and, while little
Laura Martin (who was just in roundhand) is weeping
because her dear Amelia is leaving. Miss Sharp, her
pale face thrust out of the carriage window, is throwing
back the copy of Johnson's Dixonary which good-
hearted Miss Jemima has just given her. ''So much for
the Dixonary," she exclaimed. "Thank God, I'm out
of Chiswick." Doubtless, when in 182 1 little William
Makepeace left Dr. Turner's, his feeling was much the
same.

' On Two Childreti in Black. - On Being Found Out.

UAI.rul.K IUjU.se, Clll^WlCK .MALI,

CHAPTER III

THE CHARTERHOUSE (1822-1828)

Thackeray goes to the Charterhouse, 1822 — Dr. John Russell — Dr,
Russell portrayed in "Pendennis" — Thackeray unhappy at the
Charterhouse — at the Rev. Edward Penny's house in Wilderness Row
— becomes a day-boy and lives at Mrs. Boyes's — his studies — his
schoolfellows — his love of reading, and especially of novel-reading —
first attempts to write — his earliest verses — his passion for carica-
ture — description of him as a schoolboy — his nose broken in a fight
— he creates "Grey Friars" — visits his old school — Thackeray the
great apostle of "tipping" — the Poor Brethren of the Charterhouse
— a prototype of Colonel Newcome — Thackeray's description of Grey
Friars in "The Newcomes."

jA FTER four years' preliminary training Thack-

/^L eray, at the age of ten, was sent in 1822

/ ^ to Charterhouse School. It was an unpro-

pitious time for a small boy to enter that

great seminary, for just then the head master, Dr. John

Russell,^ was introducing the '* Madras" or ''Bell"

system, under which a school, to a great extent, teaches

itself, the lower forms being taught by prcepositi— hoys

of a form just below the Sixth (or, as Russell called it,

the First), which bore the name of the Emeriti. It was

found possible under this system to run the school with

only seven assistant-masters, and the saving effected

by the reduction of the teaching staff was so consider-

^ John Russell (1787-1863), head master of Charterhouse i8ii«-i832 ;
then Rector of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, until his death.

22 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

able that the Governors materially reduced the fees,
which resulted in a rush of parents anxious to obtain
for their sons the advantages of a first-class school at
small expense. Far more boys were taken than could
be comfortably accommodated, and the class-rooms
and the boarding-houses kept by masters were over-
crowded.

Russell, whom Thackeray nicknamed "Rude Boreas"
and compared to a hungry lion, was not noted for
suaveness of manner, and at his first interview with
the new boy did not make a favourable impression.
''Take that boy and his box to the matron," he thun-
dered in his big brassy voice to the school janitor, as
hough sentencing a culprit for execution, ''and make
my compliments to the junior master and tell him the
boy knows nothing and will just do for the lowest
form." This was not a pleasant introduction to public-
school life for a timid lad of tender years, but there
was worse to come, for Russell would address lengthy
and vigorous rebukes to any boy who blundered — a
habit which subsequently Thackeray, who had suffered
from it, satirised most delightfully.

Pendennis, sir, your idleness is incorrigible, and
your stupidity beyond example. You are a disgrace
to your school, and to your family, and I have no
doubt will prove so in after-life to your country.
If that vice, sir, which is described to us as the root
of all evil, be really what moralists have represented
(and I have no doubt of the correctness of their
opinion), for what a prodigious quantity of future
crime and wickedness are you, unhappy boy, laying
the seed ! Miserable trifler ! A boy who construes
Se and instead of oe but at sixteen years of age is
guilty not merely of folly, and ignorance, and dul-

-^

^jI^H

Wll I.IAM MAKErKACK rHA<KKRAV
J-'roiii a hiisi Ity J. Devile, circa iS.'J

i828] DR. JOHN RUSSELL 23

ness inconceivable, but of crime, of deadly crime,
of filial ingratitude, which I tremble to contemplate.
A boy, sir, who does not learn his Greek play cheats
the parent who spends money for his education.
A boy who cheats his parent is not very far from
robbing or forging upon his neighbour. A man
who forges on his neighbour pays the penalty of his
crime on the gallows. And it is not such a one that
I pity (for he will be deservedly cut off), but his
maddened and heart-broken parents, who are driven
to a premature grave by his crimes, or, if they live,
drag on a wretched and dishonoured old age. Go
on, sir, and I warn you that the very next mistake
that you make shall subject you to the punishment
of the rod.^

At first terrified by these admonitions, Thackeray
after a while, like the rest of the school, came to bear
them more calmly ; but before he arrived at that happy
state, when thus addressed before his class, he was
miserable : shy and retiring, his nature was outraged
by such verbal castigations ; and when Russell employed
the weapon of ridicule, he had hard work to hold back
his tears.

Do not laugh at him writhing, and cause all the
other boys to laugh. Remember your own young
days at school, my friend — the tingling cheeks, burn-
ing ears, bursting heart, and passion of desperate
tears, with which you looked up, after having per-
formed some blunder, whilst the doctor held you up
to public scorn before the class, and cracked his great
clumsy jokes upon you, helpless, and a prisoner !
Better the block itself, and the lictors, with their
fasces of birch-twigs, than the maddening torture
of those jokes ! -

^ Pendennis, chap. ii.
' Thorns i?i the Cushion.

24 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

It must not, however, be thought that Thackeray was
systematically ill-treated, for the Doctor, whose bark
was much worse than his bite, though unsympathetic,
pompous, and stern, was just according to his lights :
none the less the lad, especially during his first years
at the Charterhouse, was far from happy, and, indeed,
the school at that time was a rough training-ground.
Who, looking back, cannot remember in his school-
days instances of injustice caused by a master's care-
lessness or ignorance, and recall the deep sense of
injury aroused by what in reality was the most trifling
incident? That Thackeray never forgot these early
troubles is clear from many passages in his works
and from the fact that, in one of the last years of his
life, he gladly commissioned Mr. Frederick Gale to
write for the Cornhill Magazine an article on ''The
Wrongs of My Boyhood,"^ showing how unjust mas-
ters were and how they misunderstood boys.

When Thackeray first went to Charterhouse he was
placed in the care of the Rev. Edward Penny, whose
house in Wilderness Row, Clerkenwell Road (from
which a tunnel ran into the school grounds), still
stands, and now boasts a tablet bearing in rudely cut
letters the inscription :

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE
THACKERAY

lived here
1822-1824

There he was wretched, and certainly little considera-
tion was shown by this assistant master for the deli-
cately nurtured lads in his custody :

1 Vol. Ill, pp. 95-103.

THE KEV. EDWAKI) I'KNNVS HOUSE, WILDERNESS ROW, ( LERKENWEI.I.

//■//(■r,- riinckcrny Ih'i'd ivlu'ii he ivas JJj-st at tin- Clmrterhousc

i82S] AT MRS. BOYES'S 25

We were fifty boys in our boarding-house, and
had to wash in a leaden trough, under a cistern, with
lumps of fat, yellow soap floating about in the ice
and water.

Thackeray left Penny's to become a day-boy, when
he stayed with Mrs. Boyes, who lived in Charterhouse
Square, and took in lads belonging to Charterhouse
and Merchant Taylors. Here he was less discontented,
though it seems that the lady was of a hasty temper.
To the last, however. Charterhouse was uncongenial
to Thackeray, and even when he was seventeen years
old, and second monitor in Day-boys, he found cause
for bitter complaint.

If the boy found the master devoid of sympathy,
there can be no doubt the master had reason to con-
sider the boy a not very satisfactory pupil. Placed
originally in the Tenth Form, in 1823 he was in the
Seventh, in the next year in the Sixth, and in 1825 in
the Third ;i while the Blue Book of May 1826 shows
him in the Second, and that of the following May in
the First Form. He seems to have jumped the Emeriti^
the qualification for which was an intimate acquaint-
ance with Horace. His rapid rise, however, may be

' Among his schoolfellows in 1825 were Edmund Lushington, captain
of the school ; Francis Edgworth and Charles Freshwater, monitors ;
G. S. Venables, Richard Venables, John Murray, and Martin Tupper,
in the First Form ; Ralph Bernal (afterwards Bernal-Osborne), Paken-
ham Edgworth, Francis Beaumont, and John Stewart Horner in the
Second ; in the Third, besides Thackeray himself, James Reynolds
Young ; and in the Fourth, Henry George Liddell. Henry Ray Fresh-
water was in the Seventh ; Richmond Shakespear and Alfred Gatty in
the Eighth ; and in the Twelfth, just entering the school, John Leech
and Alfred Montgomery. Other contemporaries were George Shake-
spear, George Lock, Robert Curzon, J, F. Boyes, Eubank, Came,
Stoddart, Garden, and Poynter.

26 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

attributed rather to the fact that in 1826 and the follow-
ing year the school ran down in numbers than to his
scholastic attainments. Euclid, we are told, was easy
to him, though he made little progress in algebra ;
but, from the pedagogical point of view, his most
serious defect was inaptitude for the study of the
classics, and doubtless it was the difficulty he experi-
enced in his efforts to write Latin hexameters and
construe Greek that aroused Dr. Russell's ire and em-
bittered the lad's stay at Charterhouse.

I always had my doubts about the classics. When
I saw a brute of a schoolmaster, whose mind was as
coarse-grained as any ploughboy's in Christendom ;
whose manners were those of the most insufferable
of Heaven's creatures, the English snob trying to
turn gentleman ; whose lips, when they were not
mouthing Greek or grammar, were yelling out the
most brutal abuse of poor little cowering gentlemen
standing before him : when I saw this kind of man
(and the instructors of youth are selected very fre-
quently indeed out of this favoured class) and heard
him roar out praises, and pump himself into enthusi-
asm for, certain Greek poetry, — I say I had my doubts
about the genuineness of the article. A man will
thump you or call you names because you won't
learn — but I could never take to the proffered deli-
cacy ; the fingers that offered it were so dirty. Fancy
the brutality of a man who began a Greek grammar
with, " ti'ttto), I thrash!" We were all made to
begin it in that way.^

After reading this reminiscence it is not surprising
to find that all Thackeray's contemporaries are agreed
that he had no school industry : Dean Liddell (whom
the novelist subsequently accused of having ruined

1 Punch in the East, III.

1828] HIS STUDIES 27

his chance of scholarship by doing his verses) thought
he was very lazy in school-work;^ and J. F. Boyes,
another comrade, has put it on record that, " No one in
those early days could have believed that there was
much work in him, or that he would ever rise to the
top of any tree by climbing." ^ With the exception of
Horace, whom he came to love, Thackeray was never
intimately acquainted with any Latin or Greek author,
and it may be doubted if, after he left Cambridge,
he ever read their works. His style was moulded,
not upon these ancient writers, but upon the great
English classics of the eighteenth century, and
especially upon Fielding, Steele (for whom and for
Addison he had great regard as old Carthusians),
Goldsmith, and Sterne, while in many passages of
'* Esmond" may be discerned a memory of Addison's
stately prose. *' My English would have been much
better," he said, *'if I had read Fielding before I was
ten."

Thackeray, in after-life, was under no illusion as to
his lack of distinction at Charterhouse.

I was not a brilliant boy at school — the only
prize I ever remember to have got was in a kind of
lottery in which I was obliged to subscribe with
seventeen other competitors — and of which the prize
was a flogging. That I won. But I don't think I
carried off any other. Possibly from laziness, or if
you please from incapacity, but I certainly was rather
inclined to be on the side of the dunces.^

This account of himself at an early age he put into

^ G. S. Davies : Thackeray at Charterhouse.
"^ A Memorial of Thackeray s Schooldays.
^ Punch in the East, III.

28 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

the mouth of the '*Fat Contributor," and, not long
after, in the novel of " Pendennis," he gave an ex-
cellent description of himself in his schooldays.^

Reading was the boy's great solace, and he was
never so happy, in these days, whether at school or in
the holidays, as when he had a book in his hand :
like Arthur Pendennis, he '* had a natural taste for
every book which did not fall into his school course."
Even in later life, when he had too many calls on his
time and too much strain on his mind to permit any
great indulgence in this direction, he cherished the
intention, when he could afford it, to retire into the
country, and, ending as he began, to feast upon books.
Works of fiction were his great delight.^ << Novels
are sweets : all people with healthy literary appetites
love them — almost all women, — and a vast number of
clever, hard-headed men," he declared forty years
later ; and in his youth he liked ** novels without love
or talking or any of that nonsense, but containing
plenty of fighting, escaping, robbing and rescuing."^

As some bells in a church hard by are making a
great holiday clanging in the summer afternoon, I
am reminded somehow of a July day, a garden, and
a great clanging of bells years and years ago, on the
very day when George IV was crowned (July 19,
182 1 ). I remember a little boy, lying in that garden,
reading his first novel. It was called " The Scottish
Chiefs."'^

^ Pendennis, chap. ii. See the passage beginning, "Arthur Pen-
dennis's schoolfellows at the Grey Friars school state that, as a boy,
he . . ."

- Whitwell Elwin : Thackeray's Boyhood.

^ On a Lazy Idle Boy,

* On a Peal of Bells.

i828] LOVE OF NOVELS 29

That was before he went to Charterhouse, but the
taste remained, and many an hour that should have
been devoted to study was occupied by the surrep-
titious reading of works of fiction.

What is that I see? A boy,— a boy in a jacket.
He is at a desk ; he has great books before him —
Latin and Greek books and dictionaries. Yes, but
behind the great books, which he pretends to read,
is a little one, with pictures, which he is really reading.
It is — yes, I can read it now — it is "The Heart of
Midlothian," by the author of ''Waverley" — or, no, it
is "Life in London, or. The Adventures of Corinthian
Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, and their friend Bob
Logic," by Pierce Egan ; and it has pictures — oh,
such funny pictures ! As he reads there comes
behind the boy a man, a dervish, in a black gown,
like a woman, and a black square cap, and he has
a book in each hand, and he seizes the boy who is
reading the picture-book, and lays his head upon
one of his books, and smacks it with the other.
The boy makes faces, and so that picture dis-
appears.^

Those happy hours spent over entrancing fiction he
was never tired of recalling, and in later days even as
he groaned over the lost illusions of the pantomime,
so he sighed over the never-to-be-repeated raptures
derived from those novels of a bygone age that no
longer had the power to charm the more sophisticated
reader of mature age.

Yonder comes a footman with a bundle of novels
from the library. Are they as good as our novels?
Oh ! how delightful they were ! Shades of Valan-
cour, awful ghost of Manfroni, how I shudder at
your appearance ! Sweet image of Thaddeus of

^ De Juventute.

30 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

Warsaw, how often has this almost infantile hand
tried to depict you in a Polish cap and richly em-
broidered tights I And as for the Corinthian Tom
in the light blue pantaloons and Hessians, and Jerry
Hawthorn from the country, can all the fashion,
can all the splendour of real life which these eyes
have subsequently beheld, can all the wit I have heard
or read in later times, compare with your fashion,
with your b illiancy, with your delightful grace,
and sparkling vivacious rattle ? . . . (My eyes) are
looking backwards, back into forty years off, into a
dark room, into a little house hard by on the Common
here, in the Bartlemy-tide holidays. The parents
have gone to town for two days : the house is all his
own, his own and a grim old maid-servant's, and a
little boy is seated at night in the lonely drawing-
room — poring over " Manfroni, or, The One-handed
Monk," so frightened that he scarce dares to turn
round. ^

From intense admiration of books to the desire to
write is in many cases but a step, and Thackeray,
though not precocious, felt from an early age a call to
authorship. From the first he found no difficulty in
expressing himself on paper. " I always feel as if I
were at home when I am writing," he said, in excuse
for his many lengthy letters to his mother ; and later
he took the same fond relative into his confidence in
the matter of his ambitious longings. "I have not
yet drawn out a plan for my stories, but certain germs
thereof are yet budding in my mind which I hope by
assiduous application will flourish yet and bring forth
fruit." How like is that to the maturer Thackeray,
who always dreamt of assiduous application and so
rarely succeeded in drawing out a plan for his stories !

^ Tunhridge Toys.

i828] AN EARLY PARODY 31

Oh, for a half-holiday, and a quiet corner, and one
of those books again ! Those books and perhaps
those eyes with which we read them ; and, it may be,
the brains behind the eyes ! It may be the tart was
good ; but how fresh the appetite was ! If the gods
would give me the desire of my heart, I should be
able to write a story which boys would relish for
the next few dozen of centuries.^

There was nothing remarkable in this wish, which
has been indulged in by many thousand lads before
and since, but the vast majority have soon outgrown
their desire, and become soldiers, merchants, sailors,
clerks, shopkeepers, or followers of the score of other
professions or trades. What is distinctive is that in
this one case the boy realised his youthful ideal.

Though we have it on the authority of Mr. Boyes
that in his schooldays Thackeray's idea was the serious
and sublime, and that he spoke "in terms of homage
to the genius of Keats that he would not have vouch-
safed to the whole tribe of humorists," his first efforts
as a juvenile author were humorous. Indeed, among
his friends he became known by the ease with which he
wrote verses and parodies, and his first known effort
has been preserved.

VIOLETS CABBAGES

(lETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON) (THACKERAY)

Violets ! deep blue violets ! Cabbages ! bright green cabbages !

April's loveliest coronets : April's loveliest gifts, I guess,

There are no flowers grown in the There is not a plant in the garden

vale, laid,

Kissed by the sun, woo'd by the Raised by the dung, dug by the

gale, spade,

' De Juventute.

32 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

None with the dew of the twilight None by the gardener watered^ I

wet, ween,

So sweet as the deep blue violet. So sweet as the cabbage, the cab-

bage green,

I do remember how sweet a breath I do remember how sweet a smell

Came with the azure light of a Came with the cabbage I loved so

wreath, well,

That hung round the wild harp's Served up with the beef that beau-
golden chords, tiful looked.

That rang to my dark-eyed lover's The beef that dark-eyed Ellen

words, cooked.

I have seen that dear harp rolled I have seen beef served with radish

With gems of the East and bands of horse,

of gold, I have seen beef served with lettice

But it never was sweeter than of cos,

when set But it is far nicer, far nicer, I

With leaves of the dark blue violet. guess,

As bubble and squeak, beef and
cabbages.

And when the grave shall open for And when the dinner-bell sounds

me — for me —

I care not how soon that time may I care not how soon that time may

be — be —

Never a rose shall bloom on my Carrots shall never be served on

tomb, my cloth.

It breathes too much of hope and They are far too sweet for a boy of

bloom ; my broth ;

But let me have there the meek But let me have there a mighty

regret mess

Of the bending and deep blue vio- Of smoking hot beef and cabbages.

let.

These verses are noteworthy only as showing the
boy's keen eye for the ridiculous and his natural anti-
pathy to mawkish sentimentality ; but they are interest-
ing as the first fruits of the gift that was later to
produce the amusing lampoon on Lytton and to cul-
minate in the admirable '' Novels by Eminent Hands."
*' Cabbages" was thought very witty by the Carthusians,
who encouraged the author to further efforts, of which

i828] HIS CARICATURES 33

the most amusing was, by Anthony Trollope, ''found
hanging in the memory of an old friend, the serious
nature of whose literary labours would certainly have
driven such lines from his mind, had they not at the
time caught fast hold of him."^

In the romantic little town of Highbury

My father kept a circulatin' library ;

He followed in his youth that man immortal, who

Conquered the Frenchmen on the plains of Waterloo.

Mamma was an inhabitant of Drogheda,

Very good to darn and to embroider.

In the famous island of Jamaica,

For thirty years I've been a sugar-baker ;

And here I sit, the Muses' 'appy vot'ry,

A cultivatin' every kind of po'try.

This is more suggestive of the maturer Thackeray in
frolicsome moments, with his liking for those disgrace-
ful rhymes of which, so far from being ashamed, he
was inordinately proud ; and in the easy flow of these
doggerel lines a discerning reader may, perhaps, detect
the mettle that was to produce the astonishing descrip-
tion of the famous White Squall in the account of
the "Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo."

If Thackeray found delight in parody, his supreme
joy in those days was caricature, and his sketches, if
they did not extort praise from the masters, gave him
an enviable fame among his fellows.

O Scottish Chiefs, didn't we weep over you ! O
mysteries of Udolpho, didn't I and Briggs Minor
draw pictures out of you. . . . Efforts feeble, indeed,
but still giving pleasure to ourselves and our friends.

^ Anthony Trollope : Thackeray, p. 32.
I.— D

34 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

"I say, old boy, draw us Vivaldi tortured in the
Inquisition," or ''Draw us Don Quixote and the
windmills," amateurs would say, to boys who had a
love of drawing.^

As a child he began to draw, and one of his first
letters to his mother contained an attempt at a pen-and-
ink portrait of Major Carmichael-Smyth, to whom she
was then engaged. " His drawings are wonderful,"
said his proud parent. At the Charterhouse he orna-
mented the leaves of his class-books with satirical
pictures of his masters and schoolfellows, and he
embellished with burlesque illustrations his copies of
''Don Quixote," "The Castle of Otranto," "Robin-
son Crusoe," "Joseph Andrews," and many other
stories.

A lad who does not place games above everything in
the world, and prefers a book to a ball, is looked at
askance in all English public schools ; and Thackeray
cannot have been popular till he showed himself pos-
sessed of qualities that compensated, or almost com-
pensated, for these defects. It has already been said
that his powers of caricature attracted the respectful
admiration of his schoolfellows, which was not lessened
when it was found that the volumes over which he
pored provided him with tales to narrate in the dormi-
tory. These accomplishments apart, he was very like
other boys. Like all lads worth their salt, he was a

^ De Juventute. Many of the drawings done at the Charterhouse have
been reproduced in " Thackerayana," edited by Joseph Grego (1875).
"Vivaldi" was evidently a favourite subject with Thackeray, for there
are two sets of sketches, one reproduced by Lady Ritchie in the bio-
graphical edition of her father's works (Vol. xiii), the other by the
present writer in the Co?moisseur (January 1904).

1828] SCHOOLBOY DELIGHTS 35

hero-worshipper, and bowed down before the cock of
the school. *'I have never seen the man since, but
still think of him as of something awful, gigantic, mys-
terious " ; ^ he was good-tempered and sociable, full of
fun, and possessed of the redeeming virtue of an in-
ordinate love of ''tuck": it was one of the humorous
laments of his later days that confectioners were not
what they were when he was a lad.

They say that claret is better now-a-days, and
cookery much improved since the days of my
monarch — of George IV. Pastry Cookery is certainly
not so good. I have often eaten half-a-crown's worth
(including, I trust, ginger-beer) at our school pastry-
cook's, and that is a proof that the pastry must have
been very good, for could I do as much now? I
passed by the pastrycook's shop lately, having occa-
sion to visit my old school. It looked a dingy old
baker's ; misfortunes may have come over him —
those penny tarts certainly did not look so nice as I
remember them : but he may have grown careless as
he has grown old (I should judge him to be now
about 96 years of age), and his hand may have lost
its cunning.2

Thackeray found pleasure in other schoolboy de-
lights, took part in amateur theatricals — the play was
the now long-forgotten " Bombastes Furioso" — and
joined in the debates. " We are going to have a debate
to-morrow night on the expediency of a standing
army," he wrote to his mother in February 1828.
" We have not yet settled the sides we shall take."^ He
must have been present at the great fight between the

^ Men^s Wives: Mr, and Mrs. Frank Berry, chap. i.

^ De Juventute.

* Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 45.

36 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

prototypes of Berry and Biggs, narrated with much
detail in " Mr. and Mrs. Frank Berry," when, after the
hundred-and-second round, the latter could not come up
to time ; and no doubt he witnessed the severe punish-
ment inflicted upon Reginald Cuff by "Dobbin of
Ours," the full particulars of which all may read in
the fifth chapter of ''Vanity Fair." He even himself
indulged in a bout — with dire results. George Stovin
Venables, when they were both boarders at Penny's,
goaded him into combat, and unhappily broke his nose.
The nose was reset, and then deliberately rebroken
by a brutal school bully. " I got at last big enough
and strong enough," Thackeray told his friend Boyes,
the son of the lady with whom he lived, "to give the
ruffian the soundest thrashing a boy ever had."^

Thackeray once referred to his schooldays as
"years of infernal misery, tyranny, and annoyance,"
but time naturally softened his feelings towards the
Charterhouse, and although he avenged himself on
Dr. Russell by pillorying him as Dr. Birch and Dr.
Swishtail, in the days of his prosperity he regarded
his old seminary without malice, and the "Slaughter
House School, near Smithfield, London," of "Men's
Wives" became the " Grey Friars " of "The New-
comes." Probably Mr. Whibley is right, however, in
asserting that Thackeray did not love the Charter-
house until he had created it for himself,- though this,
of course, never occurred to the great man.

To others than Cistercians, Grey Friars is a
dreary place possibly. Nevertheless, the pupils

1 J. F. Boyes : A Memorial of Thackeray's Schooldays.
^ WilliaTn Makepeace Thackeray, p. 6.

i828] LEAVES THE CHARTERHOUSE 37

educated there love to revisit it ; and the oldest of
us grow young again for an hour or two as we come
back into these scenes of childhood. ^ . . . Men
revisit the old school, though hateful to them, with
ever so much kindness and sentimental affection.
There was the tree, under which the bully licked
you : here the ground where you had to fag out on
holidays and so forth. . . . -

Thackeray left the Charterhouse on April 16, 1828,
but he revisited it frequently, and a recollection of the
first time he went there not as a pupil probably in-
spired a description of a similar event in the lives of
Arthur Pendennis and Harry Foker, who renewed
acquaintance with some of their old comrades there.

The bell for afternoon-school rang as they were
swaggering about the play-ground talking to their
old cronies. The awful Doctor passed into school
with his grammar in his hand. Foker slunk away
uneasily at his presence, but Pen went up blushing
and shook the dignitary by the hand. He laughed
as he thought that well-remembered Latin Grammar
had boxed his ears many a time.^

Thackeray must have received a hearty welcome
from the boys there as elsewhere, for he was the great
apostle of tipping, and always filled his pockets before
paying such a visit. An old Carthusian who once
accompanied him has related how Thackeray tipped
the first lad he met with a sovereign, proceeded to
empty purse and pocket in tips for the other boys, and,
his resources temporarily exhausted, borrowed every
coin his companion had about him, and distributed

^ The Nevjco^nes, chap. Ixxv.

"^ On a Joke I once heard from the late Thomas Hood.

' Pendennis, chap, xviii.

38 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

these too, with the result that, not having the cab-fare
left, the two "old boys" had to walk home. Thackeray
could never see a boy without wanting to tip him, and
there can scarcely have been a lad of his acquaintance
who did not profit by his good-nature. On Founder's
Day at Charterhouse he would single out a name from
the gown-boys' list. *' Here's the son of dear old So-
and-so," he would say. " Let's go and tip him." "He
had a particular delight in boys, and an excellent way
with them," Dickens has recorded. " I remember his
once asking me with fantastic gravity, when he had
been to Eton where my eldest boy was, whether I felt as
he did in regard of never seeing a boy without want-
ing instantly to give him a sovereign."^ Arguments
against tipping met with short shrift from Thackeray.

Ah, my dear sir ! if you have any little friends at
school, go and see them, and do the natural thing by
them. Don't fancy they are too old — try 'em. And
they will remember you, and bless you in future days ;
and their gratitude shall accompany your dreary after-
life, and they shall meet you kindly when thanks for
kindness are scant. Oh, mercy ! shall I ever forget
the sovereign you gave me. Captain Bob. . . It is all
very well, my dear sir, to say that boys contract habits
of expecting tips from their parents' friends, that they
become avaricious and so forth. Avaricious ! fudge !
Boys contract habits of tart and toffee-eating which
they do not carry into after-life. On the contrary, I
wish I did like 'em. What rapture of pleasure one
could have now for five-shillings, if one could but
pick it off the pastrycook's tray ! No. If you have
any little friends at school, out with your half-crowns,
my friend, and impart to those little ones the fleeting
joys of their age.^

^ Charles Dickens : In Memoriam {Cornhill Magazine, July 1864).
^ Tunbridge Toys.

i828] CARTHUSIANUS CARTHUSIANORUM 39

Though Charterhouse figures prominently in several
of Thackeray's books, and though he sent to that estab-
lishment young Rawdon Crawley, George Osborne and
his son, Arthur Pendennis, Philip Ringwood, Colonel
Newcome and Clive, Philip Firmin, and many other
lads of his creation, Thackeray earned the title of
Carthusianiis Carthusianorurn, not for his mention of
the school, but for the immortal picture of the Poor
Brethren. A thoughtful boy, the magic of the ancient
monastery threw its spell over him, and many a time
he must have contemplated with awe those venerable
gentlemen in the cloak that is a survival of the old
monastic garb of the Carthusians patrolling in the
spacious quadrangles and beautiful lawns hemmed in
by the quaint one-storied buildings, and have pondered
on the sight of the few score veterans fallen upon evil
days in their humble quiet lodging, a stone's-throw
from the noisiest, busiest part of the noisiest, busiest
city in the world. The present writer visited the place
not long since, and was so fortunate as to be taken in
hand by a mere stripling of sixty-one — he did not look
a day more than fifty — who mentioned incidentally that
he had come here to end his days. He stated this
simply. He was making no bid for sympathy. He
had lost his wife. He must have lost his money, too,
else he would not have been eligible for nomination as
a Pensioner in this home for ''gentlemen by descent
and in poverty." Yet, though this is a pleasant, peace-
ful retreat in which to wait until one enters the last
Home, none the less, when the writer took leave of his
newly acquired friend, there was a catching of his
breath as he said "Good-bye" to his courteous host.

40 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1822-

How many tragedies, how many broken hearts, disap-
pointed loves, shipwrecked careers, may be sheltered
there ! If ever a man deserved well of his kind and
has earned the meed of gentle thoughts after he has
gone to another place, that man, surely, is Thomas
Sutton, Fundator Noster^ who provided this retreat
where the weary and unfortunate traveller through the
maze of life may end his days in peace and comfort.

*' I shall put all this in my book," Thackeray exclaimed
while at the Charterhouse on Founder's Day, 1854 ;
and early in the following year he asked John (after-
wards Canon) Irvine, then at school there, to introduce
him to a '' Codd " (a colloquial term for a Poor Brother)
because ''Colonel Newcome is going to be a ' Codd.'"
The lad took him to see Captain Light, an old soldier
whom blindness and reduced circumstances had com-
pelled to seek the shelter of the Hospital ; and who,
after the novelist had been to see him, gleefully ex-
claimed, '' I'm going to sit for Colonel Newcome."

Who that has read will not gladly read again the
novelist's account of the ancient institution that con-
cludes with the description of the impressive ceremonies
of Founder's Day, when the boys and the old black-
gowned pensioners take their seats in thellighted chapel
where '' Founder's Tomb, with its grotesque monsters,
heraldries, darkles and shines with the most wonderful
shadows and lights."

We oldsters, be we ever so old, become boys again
as we look at that familiar old tomb, and think how
the seats are altered since we were here, and how the
doctor — not the present doctor, the doctor of our
time — used to sit yonder, and his awful eye used to

i828] "CODD" NEWCOME 41

frighten us shuddering boys, on whom it lighted ; and
how the boy next us imuld kick our shins during
service time, and how the monitor would cane us
afterwards because our shins were kicked. Yonder
sit forty cherry-cheeked boys, thinking about home
and holidays to-morrow. Yonder sit some threescore
old gentlemen pensioners of the hospital, listening to
the prayers and the psalms. You hear them coughing
feebly in the twilight — the old reverend blackgowns.
Is Codd Ajax alive, you wonder? — the Cistercian lads
called these old gentlemen Codds, I know not where-
fore — I know not wherefore — but is old Codd Ajax
alive, I wonder? or Codd Soldier? or kind old Codd
Gentleman? or has the grave closed over them? A
plenty of candles light up this chapel, and this scene
of age and youth, and early memories, and pompous
death. How solemn the well-remembered prayers
are, here uttered again in the place where in child-
hood we used to hear them ! How beautiful and
decorous the rite ; how noble the ancient words of the
supplications which the priest utters, and to which
generations of fresh children and troops of bygone
seniors have cried Amen ! under those arches.^

Who does not remember the pathetic scenes when
*'Codd" Newcome took up his residence in that ancient
foundation, those beautiful sad chapters that end with
the death of this chevalier sans peiir et sans reproche:

At the usual evening hour, the chapel bell began to
toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed
feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck,
a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he
lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, ''Adsum ! "
and fell back. It was the word we used at school,
when names were called ; and lo ! he, whose heart
was as that of a little child, had answered to his name,
and stood in the presence of The Master.'^

^ The Newcomes, chap. Ixxxv. ^ Ibid., chap. Ixxx,

CHAPTER IV

LARKBEARE AND CAMBRIDGE (1828-1830)

Thackeray leaves the Charterhouse — stays with his mother and step-
father at Larkbeare, Ottery St. Mary — prepares for Cambridge —
Larkbeare and Ottery St. Mary in " Pendennis " — "Irish Melody"
— Captain Costigan and Miss Fotheringay — at Cambridge —
Thackeray's good intentions — his studies — his amusements— his
views on history — and on Shelley — speech at the Union on Napoleon
— assists in the formation of an Essay Club — contributes to the
Stwb — " Tirabuctoo " — " Ramsbottom Papers" — his friendships —
Richard Monckton Milnes — Rev. W. H. Brookfield and his wife —
Edward FitzGerald — Alfred Tennyson,

SHORTLY after his return from India Major
Carmichael-Smyth was appointed Governor of
the East India Company's military college at
Addiscombe ; but in 1825 he retired from the
service, and settled down as a gentleman-farmer at
Larkbeare, which was situated on the confines of the
parish of Ottery St. Mary, in the valley of the Otter,
about eleven miles from Exeter. There Thackeray
spent his holidays with his mother and stepfather,
travelling by the Exeter coach, arriving in winter
benumbed with cold ; and, because he regarded his
school terms as bondage, anticipating the periods of
temporary emancipation with even greater joy than the
majority of his fellows.

If you are paterfamilias, and a worthy kind gentle-
man, no doubt you have marked down on your

42

i828] AT LARKBEARE 43

register, 17th December (say), ''Boys come home."
Ah, how carefully that blessed day is marked in their
little calendars ! In my time it used to be, — Wed-
nesday, 13th November, "5 weeks from the holidays";
Wednesday, 20th November, '■'■ \ weeks from the holi-
days " ; until sluggish time sped on, and we came to
WEDNESDAY, i8th DECEMBER. O rapture I^

Happy were the days spent at Larkbeare, and none
more pleasant than those duringwhich, the Charterhouse
training ended, the young man prepared himself for
Cambridge. From May 1828 until the following Feb-
ruary Major Carmichael-Smyth coached him ; and
perhaps with some prototype of Pendennis's tutor,
Smirke, Thackeray ''galloped through the Iliad and the
Odyssey, the tragic playwrights and the charming,
wicked Aristophanes (whom he vowed to be the greatest
poet of all)," and, doubtless, like the more brilliant
Arthur Pendennis,

he went at such a pace that, though he certainly
galloped through a considerable extent of the ancient
country, he clean forgot it in after-life, and had only
such a vague remembrance of his early classic course
as a man has in the House of Commons, let us say,
who still keeps up two or three quotations ; or a re-
viewer, who, just for decency's sake, hints at a little
Greek."

The months Thackeray spent at Larkbeare made
their contribution to literature, for the neighbourhood
was reproduced in "Pendennis," the most autobio-
graphical of Thackeray's novels. There is in one of the
sketches illustrating "Pendennis" an unmistakable
representation of the clock-tower of the parish church

^ On Letts' s Diary, ^ Pendennis, chap, iii.

44 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

of Ottery St. Mary, and the local descriptions clearly
identify Clavering St. Mary, Chatteris, and Baymouth,
as Ottery St. Mary, Exeter, and Sidmouth, while
Larkbeare figures as Fairoaks, although with a
novelist's license, Thackeray placed Fairoaks close by
Ottery, whereas Larkbeare was a mile and a half from
the village.

Looking at the little town from London Road, as it
runs by the lodge at Fairoaks, and seeing the rapid
and shiny Brawl (the Otter) winding down from the
town, and skirting the woods of Clavering Park, and
the ancient church tower and peaked roofs of the
house rising up among trees and old walls, behind
which swells a fair background of sunshiny hills that
stretch from Clavering westward towards the sea, the
place looks so cheery and comfortable that many a
traveller's heart must have yearned towards it from
the coach-top, and he must have thought that it was
in such a calm, friendly nook he would like to shelter
at the end of life's struggle.^

Dr. Cornish, the vicar of Ottery St. Mary, who was
friendly with the lad, has remarked that "the charac-
teristics of ' Pendennis ' found no counterpart in the
inhabitants of the locality" ;" but most readers of the
novel are reluctant to accept this statement. It is more
pleasant to think that the Rev. F. Wapshot of Claver-
ing may have had an original in some master of the
old King's School ; and there is Thackeray's authority
for the statement that Dr. Cornish furnished the model
for Dr. Portman ; while the County Chronicle and
Chatteris Champion, to which young Arthur Pendennis
sent his verses to be printed in the poets' corner, must

^ Pendennis, chap. ii.

2 Short Notes on the Church and Parish of Ottery St. Mary.

i83o] "IRISH MELODY" 45

have been the paper published in Exeter under the
splendid title of the Western Luminary, in which
journal they first appeared in print. Unlike Pen-
dennis, whose poems after he met the Fotheringay
*' were no longer signed NEP by their artful composer,
but subscribed EROS," Thackeray's only identified con-
tribution was no love-song, but an unromantic parody
of a speech, which Lalor Shell intended to deliver at
Penenden on October 24, 1828, in favour of Roman
Catholic Emancipation, but which, owing to the
threatening attitude of the mob, he was unable to do :
he had, however, sent copies of the prepared address
to the newspapers, where they duly appeared the next
morning.

IRISH MELODY
(Air : The Minstrel Boy)

Mister Shiel into Kent has gone
On Penenden Heath you'll find him ;

Nor think you that he came alone,
There's Doctor Doyle behind him.

" Men of Kent," said the little man,

** If you hate Emancipation,
You're a set of fools." He then began

A cut and dry oration.

He strove to speak, but the men of Kent

Began a grievous shouting ;
When out of the waggon the little man went,

And put a stop to his spouting.

'* What though these heretics heard me not ! "

Quoth he to his friend Canonical,
" My speech is safe in the Times, I wot,

And eke in the Morning Chronicle.^''

46 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

The early chapters of ''Pendennis" are, indeed, so
autobiographical that it is almost legitimate to wonder
if the love-affairs therein so graphically described had
not some basis in fact, and if Miss Costigan, known
professionally as Miss Emily Fotheringay, had not
her prototype in some member of the stock company
at the old Exeter theatre. It has been suggested
that the Fotheringay was a fancy portrait of the actress,
Eliza O'Neill, who in 1819 married William Becher,
then M.P. for Mallow and afterwards, on William IV's
coronation, created a baronet. Dolphin, who by the
offer of a London engagement, lured the Fotheringays
from Baymouth, was drawn from the well-known
theatrical manager, Alfred Bunn, whom Thackeray
nearly a score of years before *'Pendennis" was written,
had caricatured in "Flore et Zephyr" and lampooned
in the National Standard. Certainly, Miss Fotherin-
gay's father, the immortal Costigan, existed, though
Thackeray did not meet him till years after he had
evolved him out of his inner consciousness.

In the novel of "Pendennis," written ten years ago,
there is an account of a certain Costigan, whom I
had invented (as I suppose authors invent their
personages out of scraps, heel-taps, odds and ends
of characters). I was smoking in a tavern parlour one
night and this Costigan came into the room — alive
— the very man : — the most remarkable resemblance
of the printed sketches of the man, of the rude
drawings in which I had depicted him. He had the
same little coat, the same battered hat, cocked on
one eye, the same twinkle in that eye. " Sir," said I,
knowing him to be an old friend whom I had met in
unknown regions, ''Sir," I said, ''may I offer you a
glass of brandy-and-water ? " " Bedad, ye may,'' says
he, ^^and Pll sing ye a song^ tuf Of course, he

i83o] AT CAMBRIDGE 47

spoke with an Irish brogue. Of course, he had been
in the army. In ten minutes he pulled out an Army-
Agent's account, whereon his name was written. A
few months after we read of him in a police court.^

While *' Pendennis," as has been said, is frequently
autobiographical, the chapters of that book which treat
of its hero at the University must not be accepted as
a guide to its author's life at Cambridge. Indeed,
Thackeray was very careful to avoid even the sus-
picion of personalities. Oxbridge is an obvious com-
pound of Oxford and Cambridge, skip is a word
manufactured from the Oxford scout and the Cambridge
gyp, the river is the Camisis, and the descriptions
of the colleges are deliberately confused ; none of
Thackeray's friends of that time are introduced, and
the authorities of Trinity are excluded. Nor is there
any resemblance between the careers of Pendennis
and his creator at the University : Pendennis was a
dandy of the first water — Thackeray, it is true, before
going up, did order *' a buckish coat of blue-black
with a velvet collar," but there the resemblance ends.
Pendennis hunted, gambled with (and was plundered
by) card-sharpers, entertained lavishly, and spoke with
great success at the Union : Thackeray did none of
these things, except spend money freely ; and only
resembled the other in the enjoyment he derived from
being his own master, the change from the strict
routine of the Charterhouse being a blessed relief.

Every man, however brief or inglorious may
have been his academical career, must remember with
kindness and tenderness the old university com-

^ De Finibus,

48 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

rades and days. The young man's life is just
beginning : the boy's leading strings are cut, and he
has all the novel delights and dignities of freedom.
He has no ideas of care yet, or of bad health, or
of roguery, or poverty, or to-morrow's disappoint-
ment. The play has not been acted so often as to
make him tired. Though the after-drink, as we
mechanically go on repeating it, is stale and bitter,
how pure and brilliant was that first sparkling
draught of pleasure ! — How the boy rushes at the
cup, and with what a wild eagerness he drains it ! ^

In February 1829 Thackeray left Larkbeare for
Cambridge, accompanied by Major Carmichael-Smyth
(even as Major Pendennis went with his nephew
Arthur), staying en route for a few days in London.
They put up at Slaughter's Coffee House in St.
Martin's Lane, an establishment patronised by William
Dobbin and George Osborne, visited the Charterhouse,
and went to see Dr. Turner, upon whom his late pupil
now looked with a less unfavourable eye, and Mrs.
Ritchie, who recommended the young man to the
kind offices of her cousin. Dr. Thackeray, the Provost
of King's. There were other Thackerays at Cambridge
whom the undergraduate came to know ; George,
a Fellow of King's, and a third, doctor of medicine,
who once prescribed for his young relative, and refused
to take a fee. ''What!" he demanded; ''do you
take me for a cannibal ? "

Thackeray, who had been entered at Trinity College,
was put into ground-floor rooms in the Great Court,
opposite the Master's Lodge, and on the left of the
Great Gate, under those once occupied by Newton.

^ Pendennis, chap, xiii (first edition) — other editions, chap. xvii.

i83o] HIS STUDIES 49

He went up with the intention to become a reading
man, and to judge from a letter he wrote in March to
his mother, no one could have started better.

Badger and I are going to read Greek Play to-
gether from eleven until twelve every day. I am
getting more and more into the way of reading now.
I go to Fawcett every other morning from eight to
nine, to Fisher (the Mathematical lecturer) from nine
to ten, and to Starr (the Classical one) from ten to
eleven; then with Badger from eleven till twelve;
twelve to half-past one Euclid or Algebra, and an
hour in the evening at some one or other of the
above, or perhaps at some of the collateral reading
connected with Thucydides or ^schylus. This is
my plan, which I trust to be able to keep.^

Not long afterwards he told his mother he had been
to see ''our library," and had borrowed from it five
stout quartos. He was apparently determined to win
the approval of Whewell, his tutor, and Fawcett, his
coach, whom he described as a "most desperate good-
hearted bore."

I am just beginning to find out the beauties of
the Greek Play ; I pursue a plan of reading only the
Greek without uttering a word of English, and thus
having the language in itself, which I find adds
to my pleasure in a very extraordinary manner and
will, if I pursue it, lead me, I hope, to think in
Greek, and of course will give me more fluency.^

It was doubtless the hope of being able to "think in
Greek" that inspired Thackeray with the desire to
compete for a college prize offered for the best essay on
"The Influence of the Homeric Poems on the Religion,

^ Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 69. 2 md,, p. 67.

I.— E

so WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

the Politics, the Literature and Society of Greece " ;
but even at the outset he harboured a doubt : ''it will
require much reading, which I fear I have not the time
to bestow upon it." He soon found he had not the
time to bestow on it. Indeed, as the novelty wore off,
the new broom did not sweep so thoroughly, and the
"plan which I trust to be able to keep" was soon
abandoned in favour of pursuits more congenial. " If
I get a fifth class in the examination I shall be lucky,"
he wrote home in May ; but he was put in the fourth
class where, we have it on the authority of Dr. Thomp-
son, ''clever non-reading men were put, as in a limbo."
Thackeray threw himself gleefully into the usual
undergraduate amusements, and never allowed his
studies to interfere with supper-parties, where, "though
not talkative, rather observant," he enjoyed the humour
of the hours and would troll "Old King Cole" and
other favourite ditties ; nor was he too occupied to play
chess and practise fencing, or (as he was careful to re-
cord) fall asleep over John Gait's "Life and Administra-
tion of Cardinal Wolsey." Reading, however, was still
his principal delight, and he now read poetry as well
as the old English novels. History, too, came in for a
share of his attention, and all the days of his life he
advocated the study of that subject. " Read a tremen-
dous lot of history," he advised a young cousin many
years later ; though it must be admitted that, referring
to this same subject, he declared to Cordy Jeaffreson :
"There's nothing new, and there's nothing true, and
it don't much signify " ; ^ but he realised to the full
its value even after he had become acquainted with the

* J. C. Jeaffreson : A Booh of Recollections, Vol. I, p. 211.

1830] READS SHELLEY 51

sad fact that great deeds arise all too often from mean
causes.

The dignity of history sadly diminishes as we
grow better acquainted with the materials which com-
pose it. In our orthodox history-books the characters
move on as a gaudy play-house procession, a glitter-
ing pageant of kings and warriors, and stately
ladies, majestically appearing and passing away.
Only he who sits very near to the stage can discover
of what stuff the spectacle is made. The kings are
poor creatures, taken from the dregs of the company;
the noble knights are dirty dwarfs in tin foil ; the
fair ladies are painted hags with cracked feathers
and soiled trains. One wonders how gas and dis-
tance could ever have rendered them so bewitching.^

At the University, as at school, Thackeray, by his
love of books, was incited to take an active interest in
literature. Shelley was then the rage at Cambridge,
and Thackeray, like the rest, was attracted by the
magic of that great wonderful poetry.

When I come home I will bring with me ''The
Revolt of Islam " by Percy Bysshe Shelley [he wrote
to his mother]. It is (in my opinion) a most won-
derful poem — though the story is absurd, and the
republican sentiments conveyed in it, if possible,
more absurd.^

But soon he altered his mind about introducing a
revolutionary work into the peaceful household at
Larkbeare.

Shelley appears to me to have been a man of very
strong and good feelings, all perverted by the absurd

^ Review of The " Duchess of Marlborough's Private Correspond-
ence" in the Times, January 6, 1838.

"^ Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 70.

52 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

creed which he was pleased to uphold ; a man of
high powers, which his conceit led him to over-rate,
and his religion prompted him to misuse. ... I
think I said I should bring home Shelley's '* Revolt of
Islam," but I have rather altered my opinion, for it is
an odd kind of book, containing poetry which would
induce me to read it through, and sentiments which
might strongly incline one to throw it into the fire.^

However, Shelley still retained his fascination over
the young student, and when the scheme was mooted
of a university magazine to be called the Chimera^
Thackeray volunteered an essay on the poet, and wrote
it at Paris in the Long Vacation of 1829 ; but the
bibliographers have not traced the publication either
of the essay or the periodical. Thackeray also intended
to speak at the Union when Shelley was the subject of
debate, but the speech was not delivered, for the meet-
ing was adjourned, and the orator's courage failed
him in the interval. The only recorded instance of
Thackeray taking part in a discussion at the Union
was when the character of Napoleon was the theme.

I have made a fool of myself [he wrote to his
mother in March 1829] ; I have rendered myself a
public character : I have exposed myself. I spouted
at the Union.

Unhappily no one thought it worth while to record
his attitude towards le petit Caporal. What were his
sentiments at that date towards the great filibuster?
Did he show the average Englishman's hatred of the
French? Was he carried away by the genius of that
great general and legislator? or did he then in

* Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 70.

i83o] AN ESSAY CLUB 53

feebler tones pipe the tune that later he sang so
clearly ?

He captured many thousand guns ;

He wrote " The Great " before his name ;
And, dying, only left his sons

The recollection of his shame.

Though more than half the world was his,

He died without a rood his own.
And borrowed from his enemies

Six feet of ground to lie upon.

He fought a thousand glorious wars,
And more than half the world was his ;

And somewhere now, in yonder stars.
Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is?-

Who maun to Cupar maun to Cupar, and Thackeray's
desire to write found outlets from the first.

We are going to establish an Essay Club [he told
his mother on April 29, 1829]. There are as yet but
four of us, Browne, Moody, Young, and myself,
all Carthusians. We want no more Charterhouse
men ; if we get ten we shall scarcely have to write
three essays a year, so that it will take up but little
of our time.^

Though no further record of the Essay Club exists,
it seems probable that it came into being, and was
taken by its members with great seriousness.

Are we the same men now that . . . delivered
or heard those essays and speeches so simple, so
pompous, so ludicrously solemn ; parodied so art-
lessly from books, and spoken with smug chubby

^ The Chronicle of the Drum (1841).

" Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 67.

54 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

faces, and such an admirable aping of wisdom and
gravity.^

Three essays a year did not exhaust Thackeray's
vigour, and he was the mainstay of a small literary
club that included John Allen, Henry Alford, William
Hepworth Thompson, Robert Hindes Groome, and
James Reynolds Young of Caius. ''I don't know that
we ever agreed upon a name," Dr. Thompson has
mentioned. ''Alford proposed the 'Covey' because we
' made such a noise when we got up ' — to speak, that
is ; but it was left for further consideration. I think
Thackeray's subject was ' Duelling,' on which there
was much diversity of opinion."^

Thackeray's chief pleasure was derived from his
connection with two little university papers, founded
by his fellow-student at Trinity, W. G. Lettsom,
later Her Majesty's charge d'affaires in Uruguay.
Lettsom (who afterwards declined the dedication of
"The Book of Snobs") had early in 1829 projected a
little weekly paper, which bore the title. The Snob : A
Literary and Scientific Journal NOT Conducted by
Members of THE University. The word " Snob" was
here used, not in reference to " one who meanly admires
mean things," but to denote a townsman in contra-
distinction to a gownsman. "Though your name be
Snob," Thackeray wrote to the editor, in the note pre-
fixed to " Timbuctoo," " I trust you will not refuse this
tiny poem of a gownsman." The Snob was doubtless
so called because, as its contents were for the most
part harmless squibs directed against the University, it

^ Pendennis, chap. xix.

^ Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 72.

i83o] "TIMBUCTOO" 55

was thought to add to the humour by a pretence that
it was written by those unconnected with Alma Mater;
while the explanatory ''Literary and Scientific Journal"
was also a poor joke — the contents being solely would-
be-amusing pieces in prose and verse.

Thackeray soon became a contributor, and his skit
on "Timbuctoo," the subject of the English poem for the
Chancellor's medal (won by Alfred Tennyson), attracted
some attention.

A "poem of mine" hath appeared in a weekly
periodical here published, and called the Snob. . . .
"Timbuctoo" received much laud. I could not help
finding out that I was very fond of this same praise.
The men knew not the author, but praised the poem.
How eagerly I sucked it in ! "All is vanity " ! ^

In Africa (a quarter of the world)
Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curled ;
And somewhere there, unknown to public view,
A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo.

Thus the opening. Then follows a description of the
fauna and flora of Timbuctoo, of a lion-hunt, of the
home-life of the inhabitants and the misery caused by
the introduction of slavery ; the whole concluding with
a prophecy of dire disaster to Europe.

The day shall come when Albion's self shall feel
Stern Afric's wrath and writhe 'neath Afric's steel.
I see her tribes the hill of glory mount,
And sell their sugars on their own account,
While round her throne the prostrate nations come,
Sue for her rice and barter for her rum.^

^ Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 71.
2 The Snob, April 30, 1829.

56 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

It was a feeble production ; and indeed there is little
amusement to be derived from a perusal of this and
other farcical absurdities contributed to the little paper,
which, however, served its purpose in amusing its
authors.

On Monday night myself and the editor of the
Snob sat down to write the Snob for Thursday. We
began at nine and finished at two ; but I was so
afflicted with laughter that I came away quite ill. . . .
The Snob goeth on and prospereth. I have put
"Genevieve" into it with a little alteration. Here is
a specimen of my wit in the shape of an advertisement
therein inserted : — ''Sidney Sussex College. Wanted
a few Freshmen. Apply at the Butteries, where the
smallest contribution will be gratefully received." ^

The contributions of Thackeray to the Siiob and its
successor, the Goimisman^ were neither better nor
worse than the average undergraduate production ;
and it will suffice to make a passing reference to
those letters signed "Dorothea Julia Ramsbottom,"
inept parodies of Theodore Hook's Mrs. Ramsbottom,
which are interesting, only because in them may, per-
haps, be detected the germ from which, seven years
later, sprang the later correspondence of the erudite
Mr. Yellowplush.2

Though Thackeray left Cambridge in June 1830
without taking a degree, his residence there was of
value to him. He read widely if not deeply, and

^ C. p. Johnson : Early Writings of Thackeray, p. 7.

^ Thackeray's contributions to the Snob and the Gownsman have been
collected by the present writer, and printed in "Thackeray's Stray
Papers" (1901), and again in Macmillan's edition of Thackeray's Col-
lected Works, Vol. IX, " Burlesques . . • Juvenilia," pp. 389-401.

1830] FELLOW-STUDENTS 57

laid the foundation-stone of his future works: ^^Now
is the time to lay in stock," he said in later days to
a young man at college ; ** I wish I had had five
years' reading before I took to our trade ";^ but the
greatest benefits he derived from his stay at the Univer-
sity were those delightful and enduring friendships
that date from this period.

Perhaps never before or since has a college housed
at the same time so many gifted young men as Trinity
boasted in the days when Thackeray was there.
Amongst them were Alfred Tennyson and his
brothers, Charles and Frederick, whose '^ Poems by
Two Brothers " had appeared in 1827 ; Joseph Williams
Blakesley, afterwards Dean of Lincoln ; James Sped-
ding, the author of the standard Life and Works of
Bacon ; Arthur Hallam and Thomas Sunderland,
whose promising careers were brought to untimely
ends ; Ralph Bernal, afterwards known as Bernal-
Osborne ; Charles Rann Kennedy and Edward
Horsman ; John Sterling, the subject of Carlyle's
memoir ; Edmund Law Lushington, the famous
Greek scholar, and the husband of the sister of
Tennyson, the epilogue to whose **In Memoriam " is
an epithalamium on the marriage ; John, afterwards
Archdeacon, Allen ; Henry Alford, who became Dean
of Canterbury ; William Hepworth Thompson, sub-
sequently Master of Trinity ; Richard Chenevix
Trench, one day to be Archbishop of Dublin ; Alex-
ander William Kinglake, the future author of
''Eothen" and historian of the Crimean War; John
Mitchell Kemble, Richard Monckton Milnes, afterwards

^ Hannay : Short Memoir of Thackeray, p. 23,

58 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

first Baron Houghton ; William Henry Brookfield and
Edward FitzGerald. Most of these men had given
some indication of their talents even at this early date,
and, for that reason, it is somewhat surprising to find
Thackeray in the set, for he had come from the
Charterhouse without any particular reputation, and
nothing he did at the University showed promise of
future greatness or even of considerable ability :
**We did not see in him even the germ of those
literary powers which, under the stern influences of
necessity, he afterwards developed," Dr. Thompson
has admitted ; and no other contemporary has come
forward to controvert the statement. Once Thackeray
obtained the entree, however, his invariable good-
temper and his keen sense of humour made his place
secure. With some of them, as it has been said, he
formed an Essay Club, but with the majority his rela-
tions were purely social.

Now the boy has grown bigger. He has got
a black gown and cap, something like the dervish.
He is at a table, with ever so many bottles on it, and
fruit, and tobacco ; and other young dervishes come
in. They seem as if they were singing. To them
enters an old moollah, he takes down their names,
and orders them all to go to bed.^

Besides his old schoolfellow Venables, who was at
Jesus, Thackeray at Cambridge contracted friendships
that endured through life with James White, of Pem-
broke College, subsequently Vicar of Loxley and
author of *'The Eighteen Christian Centuries," "The
Earl of Gowrie : A Tragedy," and many other works.

^ De Juventute,

i83o] REV. W. H. BROOKFIELD 59

O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy, friends of my
youth ! . . . how should he who knows you, not
respect you and your calling? May this pen never
write a pennyworth again, if it ever cast ridicule
upon either ! ^

"Willy" was William Brookfield, of whom some-
thing will presently be said, and "Johnny " was John
Allen, who subsequently for a while lived in Great
Coram Street, opposite Thackeray, when FitzGerald
sent him a message ; " Give my love to Thackeray
from your upper window across the street."

Very pleasant always were the relations between
Thackeray and Richard Monckton Milnes, and
Thackeray was a frequent visitor at Fryston, "a
house," he said to his host, the elder Monckton
Milnes, paying him a compliment for permission to
smoke everywhere but in Richard's own rooms, "a
house which combines the freedom of the tavern with
the elegancies of the chateau.'*'' On Thackeray's return
from Paris, after the failure of the National Standard^
Monckton Milnes was one of the first to be informed
of the ex-newspaper's correspondent's arrival.

The Young Chevalier is arrived, and to be heard
of at the Bedford Hotel in Covent Garden, or at the
Garrick Club, King Street. He accepts breakfasts, —
and dinners still more willingly.^

We may be siire many breakfasts and dinners were
offered and taken. It was to Monckton Milnes more
than to anyone else that Thackeray went for advice
during the years of weary waiting for success, and

^ The Booh of Snobs, chap. xi. On Clerical Snobs.

^ Wemyss Reid : Life of Lord Houghton, Vol. I, p. 426.

6o WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

before leaving England to pay his first visit to America
he sent his old friend a note of acknowledgment.

A word and a God bless you and yours at
parting, I was thinking of our acquaintance the
other day, and how it had been marked on your
part by constant kindnesses, along which I can trace
it. Thank you for them, and let me shake your
hand, and say Vale and Salved

During the Easter Parliamentary recess of 1863,
Thackeray went to Fryston for the last time, and on the
following Christmas Eve, Monckton Milnes, now Lord
Houghton, received a sheet of notepaper, headed Palace
Green, Kensington, upon which no words were written,
but which bore a little coloured sketch of a robin-
redbreast perched upon the coronet of a baron —
Thackeray's unconscious farewell, for, ere this greeting
reached the newly created peer, the artist had passed
away. Monckton Milnes was much grieved by the
news of Thackeray's death, and he was very angry that
the authorities did not ask permission to bury the
novelist within the precincts of Westminster Abbey.
He drew an ''Historical Contrast" between this
behaviour and the conduct of Dr. Sprat, Bishop of
Rochester and Dean of Westminster, on the death of
Dryden, who

*' Waited for no suggestive prayer,

But, ere one day clos'd o'er the scene,
Craved, as a boon, to lay him there; "

and he paid a tribute to the great humorist of his day
in the concluding stanzas :

1 Wemyss Reid : Life of Lord Houghton, Vol. II, p 112.

i83o] RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES 6i

** O gentle censor of our age !

Prime master of our ampler tongue !
Whose word of wit and generous page
Were never wrath, except with wrong, —

Fielding — without the manner's dross, .

Scott — with a spirit's larger room ; —
What Prelate deems thy grave his loss ?

What Halifax erects thy tomb ?

But, mayhap, he, — who could so draw
The hidden great, — the humble wise,

Yielding with them to God's good law.
Makes the Pantheon where he lies."^

When, a little before the end of his life, one of his
daughters asked Thackeray which friends he had loved
the best, he replied, *' Why, dear old Fitz, of course,
and Brookfield."

Thackeray's intimacy with Brookfield was lifelong,
and when in 1841 Brookfield married (the daughter of
Sir Charles Elton of Clevedon), it was eagerly and
heartily extended to his wife.

A friend I had, and at his side — the story dates from seven

long year —
One day I found a blushing bride, a tender lady kind and

dear !
They took me in, they pitied me, they gave me kindly words

and cheer,
A kinder welcome who shall see than yours, O friend and

lady dear? ^

A volume of Thackeray's letters to the Brookfields
has been published, and from a perusal of it may be

^ Cornhill Magazine, February 1864.

* Charles and Frances Brookfield : Mrs. Brookfield and her Circle.
Vol. I, p. 113.

62 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

seen how delightful were the relations between them.
The novelist was never too busy to write to " My dear
Vieux " and his. wife from town, from the Continent,
from New York, long chatty letters, often about trifles,
sometimes about grave matters. " I tell you and
William most things," he said to Mrs. Brookfield.
Their house was always open to him ; their regard for
him was carried to his children; and Mrs. Brookfield,
on the last day of her life, quoted to Thackeray's sur-
viving daughter a passage from the great novelist's
works :

Try to frequent the company of your betters. In
books and life that is the most wholesome society ;
learn to admire rightly ; the great pleasure of life is
that. Note what the great men admired ; they
admired great things ; narrow spirits admire basely
and worship meanly.^

Thackeray portrayed his old schoolfellow in *' Travels
in London " as the good-natured curate, Frank White-
stock ; and he introduced some traits of Mrs. Brookfield
into the composite character of Amelia Osborne {nee
Sedley).

In their earlier years Thackeray and FitzGerald were
regular correspondents, and ''Old Fitz," or "Cupid,"
or " Ned," '' Neddibus," " Neddikins," or '' Yedward,"
as his friend called him, was able to fill a volume with
the drawings sent him by the other, whose habit it
was to illustrate his letters. FitzGerald used to stay
with his friend in Great Coram Street (Jorum Street,
Thackeray called it) and also in Young Street, and the
novelist loved to have him in the house. "He is

' English Humorists — Pope.

i83o] EDWARD FITZGERALD 63

a delightful companion ; the only drawback is we
talk so much of books and poems that neither do much
work." The poet's diary contains many entries, and
his letters many references, concerning his great literary
brother. He tells how, in December 1832, Thackeray
came to see him before returning to Devonshire. " He
came very opportunely to divert my Blue Devils : not-
withstanding, we do not see very much of each other :
and he has now so many friends (especially the Bullers)
that he has no such wish for my society. He is as full
of good humour and kindness as ever."^ Yet they
continued to correspond when Thackeray was abroad,
and met frequently after his return, though after 1848
or 1849 they saw less of each other.

" I am going to Spedding's rooms this very evening:
and there I believe Thackeray, Venables, etc., are
to be," FitzGerald wrote to Frederick Tennyson on
April 17, 1850. *' I hope not a large assembly, for
I get shyer and shyer even of those I know." It is in
this letter that he said, " Thackeray is in such a great
world that I am afraid of him ; he gets tired of me,
and we are content to regard each other at a distance."-
But Thackeray never tired of his old college friend.
** I am glad you like it," he wrote after hearing of the
other's approval of "Vanity Fair" — and the explanation
of the subsequent irregular correspondence and the rare
meetings may be traced to FitzGerald's increasing love
of seclusion. But, despite the latter's complaint, there
was no coldness in their hearts. "And so dear old
Thackeray is really going to America," FitzGerald

- Letters of Edward FitzGerald, Vol. I, p. i8.
"^ Ibid., Vol. I, p. 295.

64 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

exclaimed, hearing the news. ** I must fire him a
letter of farewell." And he wrote to him, and told him
of a provision he had made in his will. ''You see,"
he said, "you can owe me no thanks for giving what
I can no longer use when I go down into the pit. . . ." ^
And Thackeray's reply to his "dearest old friend," just
before he sailed, breathes a deep sense of love.

I mustn't go away without shaking your hand
and saying Farewell and God Bless you. If any-
thing happens to me, you by these presents must
get ready the Book of Ballads which you like, and
which I had not time to prepare before embarking
on this voyage. And I should like my daughters to
remember that you are the best and oldest friend their
Father ever had, and that you would act as such :
as my literary executor and so forth. My books
would yield a something as copyrights : and should
anything occur, I have commissioned friends in
good places to get a Pension for my poor little wife.
. . . Does not this sound gloomily? Well : who
knows what Fate is in store : and I feel not at all
downcast, but very grave and solemn, just at the
brink of a great voyage. . . . The greatest comfort
I have in thinking about my dear old boy is that
recollection of our youth when we loved each other
as I do now while I write Farewell ! ^

FitzGerald, late in 1856, went to town, where he
hoped to catch sight of " old Thackeray, who, Donne
wrote me word, came suddenly on him in Pall Mall
the other day ; while all the people suppose ' The
Newcomes' was being indited at Rome or Naples."
" Oddly enough," he wrote to E. B. Cowell on
January 26, 1857, "as I finished the last sentence,

^ Letters of Ed'<vard FitzGerald, Vol. II, p. lo.
2 Ibid.y Vol. II, p. 9.

i83o] "OLD THACKERAY" 65

Thackeray was announced ; he came in, looking gray,
grand, and good-humoured ; and I held up this Letter
and told him whom it was written to, and he sends his
Love ! He goes lecturing all over England ; has
fifty pounds for each lecture ; and says he is ashamed
of the fortune he is making. But he deserves it." ^ A
few days after FitzGerald went to hear his friend's dis-
course on George HL ''Very agreeable to me, though
I did not think highly of the lecture."

This must have been one of the last meetings, if,
indeed, it was not the last meeting, of the two men.
But the long interval did not deaden their feelings,
and news of his friend's death, in 1863, came as a great
shock to FitzGerald. " A great figure has sunk under
earth," he said to George Crabbe, grandson of the poet;
and in a letter, dated January 7, 1864, asking Samuel
Laurence for particulars of his two portraits of
Thackeray, he wrote : " I am surprised almost to find
how much I am thinking of him : so little as I had
seen of him for the last ten years ; not once for the last
five. I have been told — by you, for one — that he was
spoiled. I am glad therefore that I have scarce seen
him since he was ' old Thackeray.' I keep reading his
' Newcomes ' of nights, and as it were hear him saying
so much in it ; and it seems to me as if he might be
coming up my Stairs, and about to come (singing)
into my Room, as in old Charlotte Street, etc. thirty
years ago."^

FitzGerald had throughout followed Thackeray's
career with great interest, and, as the many criticisms

^ Letters of Edward FitzGerald, WoX. II., p. 52.
2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 171.
I. — F

66 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1828-

in his letters testify, read all that his friend wrote.
'*As to Thackeray's " (books) "they are terrible ; I really
look at them on the shelf, and am half afraid to touch
them," he wrote in 1875 to Samuel Laurence. *' He, you
know, could go deeper into the springs of Common
Action than these Ladies (Miss Austen and George
Eliot) ; wonderful he is, but not delightful, which one
thirsts for as one gets old and dry."^ And finally, com-
paring the literary merits of Disraeli with Thackeray,
he said: ''The book (* Lothair ') is like a pleasant
Magic Lantern ; when it is over, I shall forget it, and
shall want to return to what I do not forget, some of
Thackeray's monumental figures of pauvre et triste
htimaiiite, as old Napoleon calls it : Humanity in its
Depths, not in its superficial Appearances." ^

Thackeray and Tennyson formed a mutual admiration
society a deiix. Thackeray, ill in bed, eagerly devoured
"The Idylls of the King." "Oh! I must write to him
now for this pleasure, this delight, this splendour of
happiness which I have been enjoying," he said in a
note to the poet,^ who declared that this tribute gave
him "more pleasure than all the journals and month-
lies and quarterlies which have come across me ; not so
much from your being the Great Novelist I hope as
from your being my good old friend or from your
being both of these in one." ^ When the poet-laureate's
"Grandmother" appeared in Once a Week, " I wish
I could have got that poem for my Cornhillj" said

^ Letters of Edward FitzGerald, Vol. Ill, p. 203.

'^ Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 17.

' Life and Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Vol. II, p. 287.

^ Ibid., Vol. II, P284.

i83o] ALFRED TENNYSON 67

the editor of the magazine to Locker-Lampson. " I
would have paid fifty pounds for it, but I would
have given five hundred pounds to be able to write
it."^ And numerous were the affectionate notes ex-
changed. *' You don't know how pleased the girls
were at Kensington t'other day to hear you quote their
father's little verses," Thackeray wrote in 1859; "and
he too I daresay was not disgusted." ^

^ F. Locker Lampson : My Confidences, p. 298.

^ Life and Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Vol. II, p. 286.

CHAPTER V

AM RHEIN (1830-1831)

Thackeray goes abroad — Paris — Coblenz — Godesberg — Cologne —
Weimar — Weimar in "Vanity Fair" — his flirtations — Dorothea and
her prototype — his opinions of the German writers — Mme. Goethe —
"Grand old Goethe."

IN the earlier decades of the nineteenth century it
was still customary for a young man of means
and fashion, after he came down from the
University, to make a more or less extended tour
through Europe, usually with a "bear-leader" dis-
guised as a tutor, but sometimes alone, when the
Young Hopeful had inspired confidence in his steadi-
ness in the bosoms of those members of his family who
were responsible for, or who charged themselves with,
his welfare. This latter privilege, so much desired by
a lad about to enter the broad arena of the world,
was secured by Thackeray, about to go abroad when,
at the age of nineteen (1830), he left Cambridge. This
presupposes he had then secured a reputation for
common sense, which he was presently, to some
extent, to belie by allowing himself to be victimised in
a commercial transaction and to be swindled at the
card-table : he was, however, on the whole sensible
enough for one of his years. " Be sure," he said years
afterwards, "if thou hast never been a fool, thou wilt

68

1 830] ABROAD 69

never be a wise man." The picture of him at this time
is that of a lad of no great intellectual ability, but with
the agreeable qualities of humour, amiability, and
kindness, a love of books and of the lighter branches
of pictorial art, and a considerable talent for satirical
sketches both with pen and pencil that indicate to us,
who can trace from them the development of his
genius, a power of observation unusually acute for so
young a man. In appearance he was, at this time,
according to Dr. Thompson, a tall, thin, large-eyed,
full and ruddy-faced man, with an eyeglass fixed en
permanence.

Thackeray prepared himself for his travels by taking
in London a course of German lessons with a Herr
Troppenheger — who, doubtless, would be mightily
surprised to find his name remembered after the lapse
of the greater part of a century — and in July 1830 he
set out for the Continent. Paying a visit to Paris en
route, he arrived at the end of the month at Coblenz,
and then, going north, he came to Godesberg, a town
that occupied an important place in his '* Legend of the
Rhine." There he stayed a month, noting the habits
and customs of the inhabitants and endeavouring to
supplement his slight knowledge of the German
language, so that, as Mark Twain has happily put
it, he should not make twins out of a dative dog.
Eventually he went on a Rhine steamer to Cologne,
as afterwards did Mr. Titmarsh in company with the
Kickleburys, whose travels he recorded and illustrated.
Thackeray refused to describe the river, which, he
declared, was as familiar to English people as the
Thames, and subsequently Titmarsh made a similar

70 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1830-

resolve, to which he adhered until he saw a sunrise at
Cologne, when he gave voice to an exquisite prose
poem.

Deutz lay opposite [he wrote in a white heat of
enthusiasm], and over Deutz the dusky sky was red-
dened. The hills were veiled in the mist and the
grey. The grey river flowed underneath us ; the
steamers were roosting along the quays, a light
keeping watch in the cabins here and there, and its
reflections quivering in the water. As I look, the
sky-line towards the east grows redder and redder.
A long troop of grey horsemen winds down the
river road, and passes over the bridge of boats. You
might take them for ghosts, those grey horsemen, so
shadowy do they look ; but you hear the trample of
their hoofs as they pass over the planks. Every
minute the dawn twinkles up into the twilight ; and
over Deutz the heaven blushes brighter. The quays
begin to fill with men : the carts begin to creak and
rattle, and wake the sleeping echoes. Ding, ding,
ding, the steamers' bells begin to ring : the people
on board to stir and wake : the lights may be extin-
guished, and take their turn of sleep : the active
boats shake themselves, and push out into the river :
the great bridge opens, and gives them passage : the
church bells of the city begin to clink : the cavalry
trumpets blow from the opposite bank : the sailor is
at the wheel, the porter at his burthen, the soldier at
his musket, and the priest at his prayers. . . . And
lo ! in a flash of crimson splendour, with blazing
scarlet clouds running before his chariot, and herald-
ing his majestic approach, God's sun rises upon the
world, and all nature wakens and brightens.^

Leisurely, by way of Elberfeld, Cassel, and the quaint
old town of Gotha, Thackeray proceeded on his travels,
and at last on September 29 arrived at Weimar. He

^ The Kicklehurys on the Rhine.

i83i] PUMPERNICKEL-WEIMAR 71

came for a few days, but stayed months in the ''little,
comfortable, Grand-Ducal town of Pumpernickel," as
in "Vanity Fair" he styled it — that little town where
Sir Pitt Crawley was for years an attache and where
that ''infernal slyboots of a Tapeworm," the Secretary
of the English Legation, showed himself susceptible
to the charms of Amelia Osborne.

Pumpernickel [he wrote with satire tempered by
the memory of happy days spent there] stands in the
midst of a happy valley, through which sparkles —
to mingle with the Rhine somewhere, but I have
not the map at hand to say exactly at what point —
the fertilising stream of the Pump. In some places
the river is big enough to support a ferry-boat, in
others to turn a mill ; in Pumpernickel itself, the
last Transparency but three, the great and renowned
Victor Aurelius XIV. built a magnificent bridge,
on which his own statue rises, surrounded by water-
nymphs and emblems of victory, peace, and plenty ;
he has his foot on the neck of a prostrate Turk —
history says he engaged and ran a Janissary through
the body at the relief of Vienna by Sobieski, — but
quite undisturbed by the agonies of the prostrate
Mahometan, who writhes at his feet in the most
ghastly manner — the Prince smiles blandly, and
points with his truncheon in the direction of the
Aurelius Platz, where he began to erect a new
palace that would have been the wonder of the age,
had the great-souled Prince but funds to complete
it. But the completion of Monplaisir {Monblaisir,
the honest German folks call it) was stopped for lack
of ready money, and it and its park and garden are
now in rather a faded condition, and not more than
ten times big enough to accommodate the Court of
the reigning Sovereign.^

Thackeray arrived at Pumpernickel-Weimar at the

^ Vanity Fair^ chap. Ixiii.

^2 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1830-

beginning of September, and found already settled
there Norman MacLeod, the son of the Moderator of
the General Assembly and himself afterwards a cele-
brated Scotch divine, and his old Trinity friend,
Lettsom, who was attached to the suite of the English
Minister ; and with these two young men learnt
German from Dr. Weissenborn, — ''thou wert my in-
structor, good old Weissenborn."^ It was a quiet,
homely little place in the early thirties, the capital
of the Grand-Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and
Thackeray was so happy that he wrote home in
December to say he would much appreciate an
appointment as attache that would enable him to stay
there. " I have never seen a society more simple,
charitable, courteous, gentlemanlike, than that of the
dear little Saxon city where the good Schiller and the
great Goethe lived and lie buried," Thackeray de-
clared in after-life, when he had pictured it in those
chapters of "Vanity Fair" where " der Herr Graf
von Sedley nebst Begleitung" goes Am Rhein.

Everybody in Pumpernickel knew everybody. No
sooner was a foreigner seen there, than the Minister
for Foreign Affairs, or some other great or small
officer of state, went round to the Erbprinz (Hotel),
and found out the name of the new arrivals. . . .
It was very agreeable for the English. There were
shooting-parties and battues ; there was a plenty of
balls and entertainments at the hospitable Court ;
the society was generally good ; the theatre excellent,
and the living cheap. "^

Thackeray declared that Weimar was the most
hospitable place in the world so far as tea-parties were

^ De Finibus. ^ Vanity Fair, chap. Ixii.

iS3i] AMUSEMENTS 73

concerned, though he lamented that he was never in
one where invitations to dinner were so scarce ; but
this was the only fault he could find with the place,
and if the entertainment was frugal, the welcome at
least was hearty. He went to Court, where in his
turn he was commanded to balls and assemblies, and
— there at least — to dinners. Most of the Germans
had a uniform, and, as is their custom, always
appeared in it, and those English who had one, dip-
lomatic or military, wore it when paying their re-
spects to the Grand-Duke and Duchess ; while those
who had not invented one — the Hof-Marschall of that
day, M. de Spiegel, the father of two beautiful girls,
though a martinet so far as the dress of his country-
men was concerned, good-naturedly overlooking the
contrivances of the young strangers. Thackeray sub-
sequently told George Henry Lewes that he re-
membered inventing "gorgeous clothing" for these
gatherings ; but he wrote home at the time to com-
plain that he was somewhat troubled by his makeshift
dress of black coat, waistcoat, and trousers cut down
to breeches, in which he declared he looked half a
footman, half a Methodist parson ; and he begged his
stepfather to secure for him a cornetcy in Sir John
Kennaway's Yeomanry, so that he might attire himself
suitably. The only other grievance he had in these
happy days was that all the young ladies at Weimar
spoke English so well that he had no opportunity to
speak German.

Thackeray visited the theatre which was open two or
three nights a week, and where the entire society of
Weimar assembled, * ' a large family party. " Besides the

74 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1830-

regular company, famous artists came from other parts
of Germany, and he saw Ludwig Devrient, "the Kean
of Germany " he called him, as Shylock, Hamlet, Fal-
staff, and the hero in " Die Rauber," and the beautiful
Schroder in "Fidelio." He drew on his memory of
this time when he sent Jos and Emmy and Dobbin to a
Gast-rolle night at the Royal Grand-Ducal Pumper-
nickelisch Hof-Theater, when they saw ''Die Schlacht
bei Vittoria," in which the melody of "God save the
King " is performed.

There may have been a score of Englishmen in
the house, but at the burst of the beloved and well-
known music, every one of them . . . stood bolt
upright in their places, and proclaimed themselves
to be members of the dear old British nation. ^

Thackeray had at this time some love-affairs, but,
though they lingered in his memory, to judge from the
tone in which he wrote about them, they were not very
serious.

Now I see one of the young men alone [he remem-
bered thirty years later]. He is walking in a street —
a dark street — presently a light comes to a window.
There is the shadow of a lady who passes. He
stands there till the light goes out. Now he is in a
room scribbling on a piece of paper, and kissing a
miniature every now and then. They seem to be
lines each pretty much of a length. I can read hearty
smart, dart; Mary, fairy ; Cupid, stupid; true, you;
and never mind what more. Bah ! it is bosh.2

He thoroughly enjoyed his flirtations, humorously
bemoaning his fate when a girl was allured from him
by the fascinations of a young Guardsman with mag-

^ Vanity Fair, chap. Ixii. ^ De Juventute.

i83i] "DOROTHEA" 75

nificent waistcoats and ten thousand a year, by trans-
lating, for the benefit of his mother, poor Thekla's
song in " Wallenstein,"

This world is empty,

This heart is dead,
Its hopes and its ashes

For ever are fled.^

Some ten years after Thackeray was at Weimar Mr.
George Savage Fitz-Boodle, who had followed in his
creator's footsteps, narrated his amorous ''Confes-
sions," and it is impossible to put aside the suspicion
that these were based upon the author's experiences.
Whether Thackeray, like Fitz-Boodle, met at Bonn
some "pretty Mina, daughter of Moses Lowe, banker,"
who, after this lapse of time, shall say? and of greedy
Ottilia no trace is to be found in the records of
Thackeray's travels. At Weimar, however, he met
the original of Dorothea, daughter of Herr Ober-Hof-
und-Bau-Inspektor von Speck, and for her sweet sake
learned to dance. He made his first appearance as a
dancer at a Court Ball, secured Dorothea as partner,
and danced with her on a highly waxed floor, danced
—and fell !

O Dorothea ! you can't forgive me, you oughtn't
to forgive me ; but I love you madly still. My next
flame was Ottilia.^

After twenty-three years, Thackeray revisited ' ' the
cheery social little German place," and pointed out to
his daughters the house where his heroine had lived.

^ Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 82.
^ Confessions of Fitz-Boodle — Dorothea.

76 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1830-

Dorothea had gone from Weimar, but her erstwhile
lover was to see her soon after at Venice, at breakfast
in a hotel, a fat woman whom he did not recognise

until she was pointed out to him as Madame von Z .

"My poor father turned away, saying in a low, over-
whelmed voice, ' That Amalia ! That cannot be
Amalia ! ' " his eldest daughter has recorded. '* I
could not understand his silence, his discomposure.
' Aren't you going to speak to her? Oh, please do go
and speak to her,' we both cried. ' Do make sure if it
is Amalia.' But he shook his head. ' I can't,' he
said; 'I had rather not.' Amalia, meanwhile, having
finished her ^^^^ rose deliberately, laid down her
napkin, and walked away, followed by her little boy."^
In a town that owed its world-wide fame to the
welcome it had extended to Goethe, Schiller, Herder,
and Wieland, it was natural that the talk in the salons
should be of letters and art. Thackeray, to whom
such conversation was congenial, and who indeed
did not require any spur to take him to the company
of books, read diligently the standard German authors.
Herwegh, now no more than a name even to most of
his countrymen, the young Englishman studied, and
later wrote of in characteristic Titmarshian manner :

It is absurd to place this young man forward as a
master. His poetry is a convulsion, not an effort of
strength ; he does not sing, but he roars ; his dis-
like amounts to fury ; and we must confess that it
seems to us, in many instances, that his hatred and
heroism are quite factitious, and that his enthusiasm
has a very calculating look with it. Fury, to be
effective either in life or in print, should surely only

^ Lady Ritchie : Chapters from some Memoirs, pp. 1 17-18.

i83i] GERMAN AUTHORS ^^

be occasional. People become quite indifferent to
wrath which is roaring and exploding all day : as
gunners go to sleep upon batteries. Think of the
prodigious number of appeals to arms that our
young poet has made in the course of these pages ;
what a waving and clatter of flashing thoughts ;
what a loading and firing of double-barrelled words ;
and, when the smoke rolls off, nobody killed I ^

Uhland, Korner, Von Chamisso, and others he read,
and afterwards translated ; and, of course, Goethe and
Schiller. ''Faust" did not arouse in him great en-
thusiasm. ''Of course I am delighted, but not to
that degree I expected " ; but for Schiller's plays and
poems he had unbounded admiration.

I have been reading Shakespeare in German [he
wrote to his mother]. If I could ever do the same
for Schiller in English, I should be proud of having
conferred a benefit on my country. ... I do believe
him to be, after Shakespeare, "the poet."^

The greatest figure in Weimar in Thackeray's day
was Goethe, who had now retired from the direction of
the theatre, and, indeed, also from general society,
though his daughter-in-law, Madame de Goethe, who
kept house for him, occasionally gave a tea-party to
some of his favourites. Thackeray and his English
friends were frequent visitors, and went there night

^ George Herwegh's Poems {Foreign Quarterly Review, April 1843).
The translations from Herwegh were printed by the present writer
in an article on "Thackeray's Ballads" in the Fortnightly Review
(November 1907) and LittelTs Living Age (December 1907). The article
was first reprinted by Mr. R. S. Garnett in "The New Sketch Book,"
and it has since been included by Professor Saintsbury in the Oxford
edition of Thackeray's Works.

"^ Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 81.

78 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1830-

after night to talk, or listen to music, bringing with
them books or magazines from England for Goethe
to glance at. The Maclise caricatures in the early-
numbers of Fraser^s Magazine interested the old man,
until there appeared the terrible sketch of cadaverous
Sam Rogers, of which Maginn wrote : ^^De mortuis
nil nisi honum! There is Sam Rogers, a mortal like-
ness, painted to the very death!" "They would
make me look like that," Goethe exclaimed angrily.
Thackeray, who could fancy " nothing more serene,
majestic, and healthy -looking than the grand old
Goethe," remembered this remark, and on his return
gave Maclise a sketch of the old man, which the artist
copied and inserted in the issue of the magazine for
March 1832.^ In those days already it was Thackeray's
great pleasure to draw caricatures for children, and
when he revisited Weimar more than a score of years
after, he was touched to find that several of his sketches
had been preserved.

Thackeray naturally regarded as the most memor-
able day of his stay at Weimar his first meeting with
''grand old Goethe," who received him kindly, and, it
pleased the young man to think, **in rather a more
distingue manner than he has used the other English-
men here." He never forgot the day (October 20)
when he met this redoubtable personage — it was like
a visit to a dentist, he told Monckton Milnes ; and

' The copy in Fraser's Magazine proved a total failure and involun-
tary caricature, resembling-, as was said at the time, a wretched old-
clothes-man carrying' behind his back a hat which he seemed to have
stolen." — Carlyle : Miscellanies, Vol. Ill, p. 93,

The orig-inal by Maclise is in the South Kensington Museum.

I83I] INTERVIEW WITH GOETHE 79

after a quarter of a century he could recall every detail
of the brief interview.

Of course I remember very well the perturbation
of spirit with which, as a lad of nineteen, I received
the long-expected intimation that the Herr Geheim-
rath would see me on such a morning. This notable
audience took place in a little ante-chamber of his
private apartments, covered all round with antique
casts and bas-reliefs. He was habited in a long
gray or drab redingote, with a white neckcloth and
a red ribbon in his button-hole. He kept his hands
behind his back, just as in Ranch's statuette. His
complexion was very bright, clear, and rosy. His
eyes extraordinarily dark, piercing and brilliant.^ I
felt quite afraid before them, and recollect comparing
them to the eyes of the hero of a certain romance
called ' ' Melmoth the Wanderer, " which used to alarm
us boys thirty years ago ; eyes of an individual who
had made a bargain with a Certain Person, and at
an extreme old age retain these eyes in all their
awful splendour. I fancy Goethe must have been
still more handsome as an old man than even in
the days of his youth. His voice was very rich
and sweet. He asked me questions about myself,
which I answered as best I could. I recollect I
was at first astonished, and then somewhat relieved,
when I found he spoke French with not a good
accent.

Vidi tantum. I saw him but three times. Once
walking in the garden of his house in the Frauen-
platz ; once going to step into his chariot on a sun-
shiny day, wearing a cap and a cloak with a red
collar. He was caressing at the time a beautiful
little golden-haired granddaughter, over whose sweet
face the earth has long since closed too.'

^ "This must have been the effect of the position in which he sat
with regard to the light. Goethe's eyes were dark brown, but not very
dark." — G. H. Lewes.

' Letter to G. H. Lewes, April 28, 1855, quoted in the Life of Goethe.

8o WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1831

An artist might well take for the subject of a picture
this meeting of the two men, the one on the brink of
the grave, renowned as poet and dramatist beyond all
living men, the other on the threshold of life, not even
dreaming of the greatness he was to attain. The
author of '' Faust" doubtless did not discern any germ
of the still unveiled talent of his young visitor, who all
his life was to treasure the memory of this interview.
'' My only recommendation," Thackeray once humor-
ously remarked, "is that I have seen Napoleon and
Goethe, and am the owner of Schiller's sword."

1

CHAPTER VI

THE TEMPLE (1831-1832)

Thackeray a student of Middle Temple — chambers at No. 2, Brick
Court — writes of the literary associations of the Temple — the Temple
in his writings — loses money at cards — the original of Deuceace —
chambers at No. lo, Crown Office Row — work and play — dislike of
the law — goes to Cornwall to canvass for Charles Buller — comes of
age — abandons the Law — goes to Paris — loses his patrimony.

ON his return in the autumn of 1831 from his
Wanderj'ahr, Thackeray entered himself as
a student of Middle Temple, and though
he did not look forward with pleasure to
practising at the Bar, yet, as he wrote to his mother,
he regarded the profession as "a noble and tangible
object, an honourable calling, and, I trust in God, a
certain fame." He read with the special pleader and
conveyancer, Taprell, at No. i, Hare Court; and he
lived at No. 2, Brick Court, and was pleased to recall
the fact that his chambers had once been occupied by
Oliver Goldsmith.

I have been many a time in the chambers in the
Temple which were his, and passed up the staircase,
which Johnson, and Burke, and Reynolds trod to see
their friend, their poet, their kind Goldsmith — the
stair on which the poor women sat, weeping bitterly
when they heard that the greatest and most generous
of men was dead within the black oak door.^

^ The English Humourists — Sterne and Goldstnifh.
I.— G 81

82 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1831-

Indeed, the literary associations of the Temple were
an abiding interest to the great humorist of the nine-
teenth century, and he was never weary of conjuring
up the ghosts of his predecessors.

The man of letters can but love the place which
has been inhabited by so many of his brethren, or
peopled by their creations as real to us at this day as
the authors whose children they were — and Sir Roger
de Coverley walking in the Temple Garden, and dis-
coursing with Mr. Spectator about the beauties in
hoops and patches who are sauntering over the grass,
is just as lively a figure to me as is old Samuel
Johnson, rolling through the fog with the Scotch
gentleman at his heels on their way to Dr. Gold-
smith's chambers in Brick Court; or Harry Fielding,
with inked ruffles and a wet towel round his head,
dashing off articles at midnight for the Covent Garden
Journal^ while the printer's boy is asleep in the
passage.^

Subsequently Thackeray shared chambers at No. 10,
Crown Office Row, with Tom Taylor, a fact duly com-
memorated by Taylor at the time the building in
which they were situated was pulled down.

"They were fusty, they were musty, they were grimy, dull,

and dim.
The paint scaled off the panelling, the stairs were all

untrim ;
The flooring creaked, the windows gaped, the door-posts

stood awry.
The wind whipt round the corner with a wild and wailing

cry.
In a dingier set of chambers, no man need wish to stow.
Than those, old friend, wherein we denned, in Ten, Crown

Office Row.

^ Pendennis, chap, xxx, first edition.

i832] "TEN, CROWN OFFICE ROW" 83

** But loe were young', if they were old, we never cared a pin,

So the windows kept the rain out, and let the sunshine in;

Our stout hearts mocked the crazy roofs, our hopes be-
decked the wall,

We were happy, we were hearty, strong to meet what
might befall ;

Will sunnier hours be ever ours, than those which used to

Gay to the end, my dear old friend, in Ten, Crown Office
Row.

"Good-bye, old rooms, where we chummed years, without

a single fight.
Far statelier sets of chambers will arise upon your site ;
More airy bedrooms, wider panes, our followers will see ;
And wealthier, wiser tenants, the Bench may find than

we ; —
But lighter hearts or truer, I'll defy the Inn to show,
Than yours, old friend, and his who penned this Ten,

Crown Office Row."i

As Thackeray, when he turned his hand to fiction,
sent his characters to school at the Charterhouse, so
he utilised his knowledge of the Inns of Court to
people them with fictitious personages. In Lamb
Court were the chambers of Pendennis and Warring-
ton ; and, near by, Mrs. Bolton and her daughter,
pretty little Fanny, kept the gate of Shepherd's Inn,
where Captain Costigan and Mr. Bows, when they
followed "the Fotheringay" to London, pitched their
tent next door to the chambers of Colonel Altamont
and Captain the Chevalier Edward Strong. In Pump

^ " Ten, Cro7vn Office Row." A Templar's Tribute {Punch, February
26, 1859).

84 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1831-

Court resided the Hon. Algernon Percy Deuceace,
who with his scoundrelly neighbour, Richard Blewitt,
plucked that most unsuspicious simpleton, Dawkins,
who lived on the same stair. The story of these
Captains Rook and Mr. Pigeon was based upon an
incident in Thackeray's life, for in the Temple social
robbers eased him of a good round sum.

When I first came to London, as innocent as
Monsieur Gil Bias, I also fell in with some pretty
acquaintances, found my way into several taverns,
and delivered my purse to more than one gallant
gentleman of the road. Ogres, nowadays, need not
be giants at all. . . . They go about in society, slim,
small, quietly dressed, and showing no especially
great appetite. In my own young days there used
to be play ogres — men who would devour a young
fellow in one sitting, and leave him without a bit of
flesh on his bones. They were quiet, gentlemen-
like-looking people. They got the young man into
their cave. Champagne, pate de foie gras, and
numberless good things were handed about ; and
then, having eaten, the young man was devoured in
his turn.^

At a sitting Thackeray lost fifteen hundred pounds,
probably in the manner described in the " Yellowplush
Papers." Many years later he pointed out to Sir
Theodore Martin a broken-down but gentlemanly look-
ing man as the original of Deuceace. ''I have not
seen him since the day he drove me down in his cab-
riolet to my brokers in the city where I sold out my
patrimony and handed it over to him." *' Poor devil ! "
he added, with pity in his voice, ** Poor devil ! my
money doesn't seem to have thriven with him."^

^ Ogres. * Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 236.

1832] PENDENNIS AND WARRINGTON 85

I go pretty regularly to my pleader's and sit with
him until half-past five, and sometimes six ; then
I come home and read and dine till about nine or
past, when I am glad enough to go out for an hour
and look at the world. 1

So he wrote to his stepfather in December 1831 ;
but most of his letters refer to his pleasures rather
than to his studies, and his diary is full of entries of
visits to the theatre! of happy days spent with ''Old
Fitz," at this time in lodgings in Charlotte Street,
with Tennyson, or with Charles Duller, discussing
the poets, upon whose merits they could not agree ; of
pleasant strolls in Kensington Gardens ; of luncheons
with friends, and dinners with an uncle, the Rev.
Francis Thackeray, to whom subsequently he made
appreciative reference,

O saintly Francis, lying at rest under the turf.^

The young man was attached to his relative, and his
only grievance against him was that this hospitable
gentleman would ask him to dinner too often — three
times a week — when his nephew would rather have
spent an evening in more youthful society.

The picture of those idle apprentices, Pendennis and
"Bluebeard" Warrington, was probably drawn from
the creator's life at this time, for doubtless, like them,
Thackeray and Taylor,

After reading pretty hard of a morning, and, I
fear, not law merely, but politics and general history
and literature, which were as necessary for the ad-
vancement and instruction of a young man as mere

^ Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 87.

2 The Book of Snobs, chap, xi : On Clerical Snobs.

86 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1831-

dry law, after applying with tolerable assiduity to
letters, to reviews, to elemental books of law, and,
above all, to the newspaper, until the hour of dinner
was drawing nigh . . . would sally out upon the
town with great spirits and appetite, and bent upon
enjoying a merry night as they had passed a pleasant
forenoon.^

Certainly Thackeray did not work hard, and his dis-
taste for the legal profession increased. "The sun
won't shine into Taprell's chambers, and the high
stools don't blossom and bring forth buds," he lamented
in the spring ; and in more serious mood he stated his
real objection to the study of the law.

This lawyer's preparatory education is certainly
one of the most cold-blooded, prejudiced pieces of
invention that ever a man was slave to. ... A
fellow should properly do and think of nothing else
than LAW.2

Thackeray never overcame this dislike, and expressed
it again years after in unmistakable terms.

On the other side of the third landing, where Pen
and Warrington live, till long after midnight, sits
Mr. Paley, who took the highest honours, and who is
a fellow of his college, who will sit and read and note
cases until two o'clock in the morning ; who will rise
at seven and be at the pleader's chambers as soon as
they are open, where he will work until an hour
before dinner-time ; who will come home from Hall
and read and note cases again until dawn next day,
when perhaps Mr. Arthur Pendennis and his friend
Mr. Warrington are returning from some of their
wild expeditions. How differently employed Mr.
Paley has been ! He has not been throwing himself

^ Pendennis, chap, xxxi ; (first edition).
^ Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 88.

1832] CHARLES BULLER Z7

away : he has only been bringing a great intellect
laboriously down to the comprehension of a mean
subject, and in his fierce grasp of that, resolutely
excluding from his mind all higher thoughts, all
better things, all the wisdom of philosophers and
historians, all the thoughts of poets ; all wit,
fancy, reflection, art, love, truth altogether — so
that he may master that enormous Legend of the
law, which he proposes to gain his livelihood by
expounding. Warrington and Paley had been
competitors for university honours in former days,
and had run each other hard ; and everybody
said now that the former was wasting his time and
energies, whilst all people praised Paley for his
industry. There may be doubts, however, as to
which was using his time best. The one could
afford time to think, and the other never could. The
one could have sympathies and do kindnesses ; and
the other must needs be always selfish. He could
not cultivate a friendship or do a charity, or admire
a work of genius, or kindle at the sight of beauty or
the sound of a sweet song — he had no time, and no
eyes for anything but his law-books. All was dark
outside his reading-lamp. Love, and Nature, and
Art (which is the expression of our praise and sense
of the beautiful world of God) were shut out from
him. And as he turned off his lonely lamp at night,
he never thought but that he had spent the day
profitably, and went to sleep alike thankless and
remorseless. But he shuddered when he met his old
companion Warrington on the stairs, and shunned
him as one that was doomed to perdition.^

Delighted with any good excuse to absent himself
from Taprell's, in June 1832 Thackeray eagerly ac-
cepted an invitation to go to Liskeard to canvass for
Charles Buller, who was intimately associated with the
school of philosophic radicalism, the friend of Grote,

^ Pendennis, chap, xxx (first edition).

88 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1831-

Sir William Molesworth, and John Stuart Mill, and the
pupil of Carlyle, who described him as a " fine honest
fellow, the greatest radical I have ever met." Duller
had sat since 1830 for West Looe, Cornwall, but, this
pocket borough having been disfranchised by the
Reform Bill of 1832, he now offered himself as a can-
didate for the neighbouring constituency ; and being
unfortunately too ill to leave London, the task of
visiting the voters devolved upon his brother Arthur
and Thackeray. The young men worked hard, can-
vassing farmers, dining with attorneys, writing
addresses, and attending meetings ; and were re-
warded by the return to the first reformed Parliament
of Duller, who retained his seat until his death in 1848.
" Isn't it an awful sudden summons," Thackeray wrote
to Mrs. Brookfield, on hearing the sad news of his
friend's demise. '* There go wit, fame, friendship,
ambition, high repute."^

Who knows the inscrutable design ?

Blessed be He who took and gave !
Why should your mother, Charles, not mine,

Be weeping at her darling's grave ? ^

In Thackeray's diary there is an entry on July 18,
1832, " Here is the day for which I have been panting
so long " — on this day he attained his majority and
came into possession of a patrimony that has been
variously estimated at ten thousand pounds and at five
hundred a year.

I have been lying awake this morning meditating
on the wise and proper manner I shall employ my

^ A Collection of Letters of IV. M. Thackeray , p. 34.

2 Dr. Birch and His Young Friends — The End of the Play,

i832] LOSES HIS PATRIMONY 89

fortune in when I come of age, which, if I live so long,
will take place in three weeks. First, I do not
intend to quit my little chambers in the Temple,
then I will take a regular monthly income, which I
will never exceed. . . .^

So, from Cornwall, Thackeray of the good intentions
had written to his mother, but these, like the earlier
and equally praiseworthy resolves of boyhood, were
soon abandoned, for no sooner had he attained his
majority than he gave up even the pretence of reading
for the bar, and went to Paris, where he spent some
months learning to speak the language fluently, read-
ing — and criticising in his letters home what he read —
drawing, too, and, as a matter of course, frequenting
the theatres.

Thackeray returned to England in December (1832),
and stayed for a while at Larkbeare before going out
into the world to earn a living. A fortune yielding an
income of five hundred a year is insufficient to support
in idleness a young man with expensive tastes, and
from the first Thackeray had realised he must work,
not indeed for the necessaries, but for the luxuries of
life. So long as it was for the luxuries only, however,
he was unwilling to enter any profession uncongenial
to him, and he had therefore abandoned his studies for
the Bar ; but within a short time after he inherited
his patrimony he lost most of it ; some, as it has
been said, went at the card-table, and some to settle
his debts at Cambridge, where he had spent a good
deal of money ; and more in an Indian bank failure,
that doubtless suggested the Bundelkund Bank incident

^ Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 92.

90 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832

in **The Newcomes." An income, therefore, had now
to be earned, and, since there were fewer professions
then, and Thackeray would not read for the Bar, was
too old for the army or navy, and was not attracted to
the Church or to the study of medicine, there was noth-
ing else open to him but the pursuit of art or letters.
Great results spring from small causes, and it is ex-
tremely probable that English literature of the Victorian
era would be the poorer by Thackeray's works, if that
author had not lost his money in the days of his
youth.

CHAPTER VII

IN SEARCH OF A PROFESSION (1832-1836)

Thackeray's thoughts incline to literature — becomes proprietor and
editor of the National Standard — his contributions to that paper —
the failure of the National Standard — the story of the venture re-
lated in " Lovel the Widower" — he proposes to become a painter —
and studies at Paris — his fondness for Paris — his first visit to that
city — Eyre Evans Crowe and his family — Thackeray on the artist's
life at Paris — abandons painting for caricature — "Flore et Zephyr"
— offers to illustrate " Pickwick" — " Mr. Pickwick's lucky escape" —
illustrates most of his own books — aware of the limitations of his art
— Charlotte Bronte on Thackeray as illustrator.

THACKERAY'S thoughts had often turned
to literature, probably in the first instance
thereto directed by the appreciation shown
by his college friends of his contributions
to the Snoh and Gownsman. At Weimar, besides con-
ceiving the project to present Schiller in an English
dress, the idea occurred to him to write for the English
public a book on Germany and German literature, but
he made not the slightest attempt to carry out these
schemes ; nor did his acquaintance with ** Father
Prout," Maginn, and Giffard of the Standard, inspire
him to literary labours. Yet all the time the notion
was at the back of his mind, and it needed but an in-
centive to set him to work. Charles Duller wrote for
the magazines : why not he ! he said to his mother.
The idea was fascinating, but he was doubtful of his

91

92 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-

powers. How can a man know his capabilities, he
asked very naturally and very wisely ; but in the same
breath compared his untried talent with that of Duller,
then at the zenith of his popularity. Even so did
Benjamin Disraeli, seated in the Strangers' Gallery
of the House of Commons, mentally measure swords
with the parliamentary giants, and decide he could
beat them all with their own weapons. But while
Disraeli was from the start ambitious, Thackeray,
until he lost his money, was well contented with things
as they were.

When the necessity for work arose, the opportunity
soon presented itself. By a happy accident Major
Carmichael-Smyth, perhaps in the hope to retrieve the
losses he had suffered in the bank failure, and prob-
ably also with the desire to give his stepson an
opening in journalism, became connected with the
National Sta^idard and Journal of Literature^ Sciencey
Music y Theatricals y and the Fine Arts. This grandilo-
quently named weekly was founded by F. W. N.
(** Alphabet") Bayley,^ under whose direction the first
number appeared on January 5, 1833. Exactly when
Thackeray began to contribute to this periodical cannot
be stated, but his first identified contribution appeared
in the issue for May 4, about which time he purchased
the paper.

Under the heading of the National Standard of
ours [so began Thackeray's Address in the nineteenth
number, dated May 11], there originally appeared
the following: "Edited by F. W. N. Bayley, Esq.,

^ Frederick William Naylor Bayley (1808- 1853), the author of many
verses, novels, etc., contributed to the Times and the Morning Post ;
and edited the National Omnibus and the Illustrated London News.

1836] THE NATIONAL STANDARD 93

. . . assisted by the most eminent Literary Men of
the Day." Now we have change tout cela ; no, not
exactly tout cela, for we still retain the assistance
of a host of literary talent, but Frederick William
Naylor Bayley has gone. We have got free of the
Old Bailey, and changed the Governor.

The difficulty under which Thackeray laboured all his
life was to begin to work, but, this trouble overcome,
the rest was easy. So it was at this early date that,
once started as editor of the National Standard^ his
activity was remarkable : he contributed to his paper,
verses, drawings, stories, dramatic criticisms, trans-
lations of poems and prose, editorial leaders, reviews.
Not a tithe of the matter has been identified, and it
would be waste of time to attempt to trace his writings:
what is known may be taken as representative of the
rest, and among this there is nothing remarkable, the
verses are crude doggerel, the stories indifferent, and
much of the criticism jejune. The last two lines on
some verses on Louis Philippe, his earliest identified
contribution, are, however, noticeable for the intro-
duction of the word ''snob" used in the sense that
had not then become common :

He stands in Paris as you see him before ye,

Little more than a snob — There's an end of the story ; ^

and the review of Robert Montgomery's ''Woman of
Life" has a characteristic Titmarshian conclusion, for,
after the quotation of fourteen lines from the poem, is
a note :

These are nice verses. On examination we find that
the compositor, by some queer blunder, had printed

^ National Standard^ May 4, 1833.

94 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-

them backwards ; but, as it does not seem to spoil
the sense, we shall not give him the trouble of
setting them up again. They are just as good one
way as the other ; and, indeed, the same might be
said of the whole book.^

Evidently Mr. Charles James Yellowplush saw this
review, and was amused by it, for he emulated its
humour when he was writing a scathing criticism of
" Sawedwadgeorgearllyttnbulwig's " play, ''The Sea-
Captain," and alluded to a sentence in that long-for-
gotten play that he had tried ''every way, backards,
forards, and in all sorts of trancepositions," and found
" all which are as sensible as the fust passidge."

Not long after Thackeray entered into possession of
the National Standard a,ppea.red an announcement: —
"The Proprietors of the National Standard feel that
it would be unbecoming to commence their second
Volume without acknowledging the extraordinary
success which has rewarded their labour ; success they
believe unprecedented, the sale of their Journal having
quadrupled in the short space of two months. They
can now announce, with confidence, that the National
Sta7idard is established." 2 It is to be hoped, for the
sake of the editor's reputation for veracity, that this
emanated from the fertile brain of the manager of the
paper, for, as a matter of fact, the National Standard
was at this time established on no firm basis : its cir-
culation was miserable, and advertisements, without
which no weekly can be financially successful, were con-
spicuous by their absence from its columns. Thackeray
laboured manfully and spent his days in "writing,

^ National Standard, June 15, 1833. - Ibid., July 6, 1S33.

i836] SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT 95

puffing, and other delightful employments" for the
paper, going frequently to Paris, thinking it looked
well for the paper to have its special correspondent in
that city. In September he told his mother that the
National Standard was ''growing in repute," but, sad
to relate, in a month the circulation rose only by
twenty, and then, though he still believed the periodical
would eventually provide him with an occupation and
an income, he began to realise that the proprietor
would probably be ruined before the venture paid its
way. A last despairing effort to achieve success was
made with the first number of the new year, when the
price was raised from twopence to threepence, and the
name altered to the scarcely less cumbrous title, the
National Standard arid Literary Representative ; but
in spite of the confident tone of the ''Address" in
which these changes were announced, the issue for
February i, 1834, was the last appearance of the
National Standard, etc.

There can be little doubt that Thackeray was thinking
of his connection with the National Standard v^\\tn he
wrote of the unfortunate newspaper venture in " Lovel
the Widower."

They are welcome ... to make merry at my
charges in respect of a certain bargain which I made
on coming to London, and in which, had I been
Moses Primrose purchasing green spectacles, I could
scarcely have been more taken in. My Jenkinson
was an old college acquaintance, whom I was idiot
enough to believe a respectable man : the fellow had
a very smooth tongue, and sleek sanctified exterior.
He was rather a popular preacher, and used to cry a
good deal in the pulpit. He and a queer wine-mer-
chant and bill-discounter, Sherrick by name, had

96 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-

somehow got possession of that neat little literary-
paper, the Museum, which, perhaps, you remember ;
and this eligible literary property my friend Honey-
man, with his wheedling tongue, induced me to
purchase. ... I daresay I gave myself airs as the
editor of that confounded Museum^ and proposed to
educate the public taste, to diffuse morality and
sound literature throughout the nation, and to
pocket a liberal salary in return for my services.
I daresay I printed my own sonnets, my own
tragedy, my own verses. ... I daresay I wrote
satirical articles in which I piqued myself on the
fineness of my wit, and criticisms, got up for the
nonce out of encyclopaedias and biographical diction-
aries ; so that I would be actually astonished at my
own knowledge. I daresay I made a gaby of myself
to the world : pray, my good friend, hast thou never
done likewise? If thou hast never been a fool, be
sure thou wilt never be a wise man.^

After the failure of the National Standard it became
necessary for Thackeray in all seriousness to devote
himself to a profession by the exercise of which he
might support himself. Even when he was writing a
considerable portion of each number of the National
Standard^ his thoughts were wandering from journalism
to art, and writing from Paris in July 1833 he in-
formed his mother that he was ''thinking very seriously
of turning artist."

He had to come to London in August in connection
with his paper, but two months later he returned to
Paris, and settled there with the intention to study art.
At first he stayed at the house of his maternal grand-
mother, but, after a time, he found irksome the re-
strictions of liberty imposed upon a guest, and rented

1 Chap. i.

1836] AT PARIS 97

**a little den " in the Rue des Beaux Arts. There
Planche saw him, and, describing him as ''a slim
young man, rather taciturn " and " not displaying any
particular love or talent for literature," noted that
drawing appeared to be his favourite amusement, and
that he covered any scrap of paper lying about with the
most spirited sketches and amusing caricatures.

Thackeray, who in London had probably attended
Heatherley's school of painting — the "original" of
Gandish's Academy in "The Newcomes " — at Paris
studied under Brine, the well-known impressionist
painter, and subsequently under Gros, who committed
suicide in June 1835.

Thackeray loved Paris all the days of his life, and
those who hold the mistaken belief that he hated France
and the French have no more reason to do so than
those who assert that he hated the Irish ; if he pre-
sented some Frenchmen as despicable characters, so he
poured contempt on many Englishmen, and one of the
most exquisite creations of his fancy is that most
charming lady, Madame de Florae. Thackeray went
for the first time to Paris in the Easter vacation of 1830
to join Edward FitzGerald.

I remember as a boy at the Ship at Dover {imper-
ante Carolo Decimo), when, my place to London
being paid, I had but 12s. left after a certain little
Paris expedition (about which my benighted parents
never knew anything), ordering for dinner a whiting,
a beef-steak, and a glass of negus, and the bill was,
dinner 7s., a glass of negus 2s., waiter 6d., and only
half-a-crown left, as I was a sinner, for the guard and
coachman on the way to London ! And I was a
sinner. I had gone without leave. What a long,
dreary, guilty four hours' journey it was, from Paris

I.— H

98 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-

to Calais, I remember ! . . . I met my college tutor
only yesterday. We were travelling, and stopped
at the same hotel. He had the very next room to
mine. After he had gone into his apartment, having
shaken me quite kindly by the hand, I felt inclined
to knock at his door and say, " Dr. Bentley, I beg
your pardon, but do you remember, when I was
going down at the Easter vacation in 1830, you asked
me where I was going to spend my vacation? And
I said, with my friend Slingsby in Huntingdonshire.
Well, sir, I grieve to have to confess that I told you
a fib. I had got £10 and was going for a lark to
Paris, where my friend Edwards was staying." . . .
The doctor will read it, for I did not wake him up.^

This was the first of many visits, and much of his
leisure was spent in this city. He had a great number
of friends there, and nowhere was he more welcome
than at the house of Eyre Evans Crowe, the Paris
correspondent of the Morning Chronicle^ the father of
Amy, Joseph and Eyre. *'Once a week, on Satur-
days, my mother received guests in the evening," Sir
Joseph Crowe has recorded. **My mother at her
evenings made everyone bright by playing Irish jigs
or Scotch reels, or accompanying on the piano
Methfessel's students' songs and choruses, the supreme
enjoyment being a song from Thackeray."^ When
the Crowes settled in 1844 at Hampstead, Thackeray
frequently rode there on his short cob. ** Once in our
drawing-room he was apt to forget the hours," says
Sir Joseph; '* would stop to partake of an early
dinner, though bound to join a later festivity of the
same kind elsewhere ; and I recollect him now, as if
it were yesterday, wiping his brow after trying vainly

^ Dessein's. ^ Sir Joseph Crowe: Reminisce7ices,

1836] EYRE EVANS CROWE 99

to help the leg of a tough fowl, and saying he was
'heaving a thigh.' "^ Thackeray, always grateful for
kindness shown him in the days of his struggles, was
delighted later to be able to render the younger mem-
bers of the family many good services. When, in
1854, Charles Mackay asked him to go to the seat of
war to furnish sketches for letters for the Illustrated
News, he induced the editor to send Joseph in his
place ; and on the young man's return, inaugurated
a scheme for him to make money by lecturing on the
war. Eyre was for a while the great man's secretary,
and went with him on one of the lecture tours to
America. "Six months tumbling about the world
will do you no harm," he said to the young artist;
and later he took Amy into his house, where she was
treated as a daughter, until she married her host's
cousin, now Colonel Sir Edward Thackeray, v.c, and
went to India, where she succumbed to the tropical
climate.

When Thackeray had been studying art for some
months at Paris, he reported himself satisfied with
his progress, and intimated his belief that in a year,
if he worked hard, he might paint something worth
looking at ; but he remarked naively that he would
require at least that time to gain any readiness with
his brush !

Until that happy day should arrive when he would
be a full-fledged artist, he, to some extent, threw in his
lot with his fellow-students, and thoroughly enjoyed
the happy-go-lucky Bohemian existence ; albeit he
complained of the impurity of the ideas of the French

' Sir Joseph Crowe : Reminiscences.

lOo WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-

artists, and of the jargon of a corrupt life which they
unwisely admitted into their painting-rooms.^

The life of the young (French) artist is the easiest,
merriest, dirtiest existence possible. He comes to
Paris, probably at sixteen, from his province ; his
parents settle forty pounds a year on him, and pay
his master ; he establishes himself in the Pays
Latin, or in the new quarter of Notre Dame de
Lorette (which is quite peopled with painters) ; he
arrives at his atelier at a tolerably early hour, and
labours among a score of companions as merry and
as poor as himself. Each gentleman has his favour-
ite tobacco-pipe ; and the pictures are painted in the
midst of a cloud of smoke, and a din of puns and
choice French slang, and a roar of choruses, of
which no one can form an idea who has not been
present at such an assembly. . . . How he passes
his evenings, at what theatres, at what guinguettesy
in company with what seducing little milliner, there
is no need to say. . . . These young men (together
with the students of sciences) comport themselves
towards the sober citizens pretty much as the German
bursch towards the philister^ or as the military man,
during the Empire, did to the pekm : — from the height
of their poverty they look down upon him with the
greatest imaginable scorn — a scorn, I think, by
which the citizen is dazzled, for his respect for the
arts is intense.-

Then as now Paris was the artist's paradise, for there
more than anywhere else he was appreciated, under-
stood, and well provided with schools wherein to study
his profession.

To account for a superiority over England, —
which I think, as regards art, is incontestable — it
must be remembered that the painter's trade, in

' The Paris Sketch Book — On the French School of Painting.
' J. K. Laughton : Memoirs of Henry Reeve^ Vol. I, p. 35.

1836] PAINTING 101

France, is a very good one : better appreciated,
better understood, and, generally, far better paid
than with us. There are a dozen excellent schools
in which a lad may enter here, and, under the eye of
a practised master, learn the apprenticeship of his
art at an expense of about ten pounds a year. In
England there is no school except the Academy,
unless the student can afford to pay a very large
sum and place himself under the tuition of some
particular artist. Here, a young man, for his
ten pounds, has all sorts of accessory instruction,
models, etc. ; and has, further, and for nothing,
numberless incitements to study his profession which
are not to be found in England, — the streets are
filled with picture-shops, the people themselves are
pictures walking about ; the churches, theatres,
eating-houses, concert-rooms are covered with pic-
tures ; Nature herself is inclined more kindly to him,
for the sky is a thousand times more bright and
beautiful, and the sun shines for the greater part of
the year. Add to this incitements more selfish, but
quite as powerful : a French artist is paid very
handsomely ; for five hundred a year is much where
all are poor ; and has a rank in society rather above
his merits than below them, being caressed by hosts
and hostesses in places where titles are laughed at,
and a baron is thought of no more account than a
banker's clerk. ^

At this time Thackeray was frequently at the picture-
galleries, copying pictures, at one time a Watteau, at
another a Lucas van Leyden ('^a better man, I think,
than Albert Diirer, and mayhap as great a composer as
Raphael himself"); but he soon discovered it was
extremely unlikely he would ever make any success
as a serious painter, and this opinion his friend, Henry
Reeve, who chanced to be at Paris, could not con-

^ The Paris Sketch Book — On the French School of Painting.

I02 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-

tradict. "Thackeray's drawings, if I may judge by
his notebook, are as pure and accurate as any I have
seen," said the future editor of the Edinburgh Review.
" He is a man whom I would willingly set to copy a
picture of Raphael's, as far, at least, as the drawing
goes ; but he does not seem likely to get into a system
of massive colouring, if I may judge by what he
said."^ The subject of this criticism bore his dis-
appointment philosophically, and soon after poked fun
at himself:

I wish you could see my historical picture of
" Heliogabalus in the Ruins of Carthage"; or the
full length of "Sir Samuel and His Lady" — sitting
in a garden light, reading " The Book of Beauty,"
Sir Samuel catching a butterfly, which is settling on
a flower-pot.

About the time that Thackeray discovered he would
never become a good painter, it dawned on him, or
perhaps was suggested to him, that the sketches that he
used to draw for his friends might have some commercial
value. He found one Gibbs, a dealer who offered to
try to dispose of his pen-and-ink drawings ; and he
was fortunate enough to inspire a firm of publishers
with the sense of the merits of a series of caricatures,
entitled " Flore et Zephyr," a title probably suggested
by a ballet of that name then popular at Paris. The
sketches, eight in number, appeared in March 1836
as the work of " Theophile Wagstaffe," though each
drawing is signed W. T. (in a monogram). The little
book attracted no attention at the time, but the cari-

^ J. K. Laughton : Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, Vol. I,
P- 35-

1836] "FLORE ET ZEPHYR" 103

catures are most amusing, and the grotesque attitudes
and wonderful contortions of the dancers show that
already the artist's sense of humour was well de-
veloped.

In the year that "Flore et Zephyr "appeared, Thack-
eray thought to turn an honest penny by furnishing
illustrations to books. A chance soon offered. Robert
Seymour, the creator of the original design of Pickwick,
had completed the drawings of the *' Pickwick Papers "
for the first two or three monthly numbers when, in
a fit of temporary insanity, he committed suicide in
April 1836. His place was taken by Robert Buss,
with whose work, however, the author was not satisfied ;
and Thackeray, who in May was on a visit to London,
hearing that a new artist was wanted, applied for the
work, and met for the first time his great contemporary.
Years afterwards, at a Royal Academy dinner, rising
after Dickens to respond to the toast of Literature, he
spoke of this offer, to the refusal of which he referred
as '* Mr. Pickwick's lucky escape."

Had it not been for the direct act of my friend who
has just sat down, I should most likely never have
been included in the toast which you have been
pleased to drink ; and I should have tried to be, not
a writer, but a painter, or designer of pictures. That
was the object of my early ambition, and I can re-
member when Mr. Dickens was a very young man,
and had commenced delighting the world with some
charming humorous works, of which I cannot men-
tion the name, but which were coloured light green,
and came out once a month, this young man wanted
an artist to illustrate his writings, and I recollect
walking up to his chambers in Furnival's Inn with
two or three drawings in my hand, which, strange to
say, he did not find suitable. But for that unfortu-

I04 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-

nate blight which came over my artistical existence,
it would have been my pride and my pleasure to have
endeavoured one day to find a place on these walls
for one of my performances. This disappointment
caused me to direct my attention to a different walk
of art, and now I can only hope to be "translated"
on these walls, as I have been, thanks to my talented
friend Mr. Egg.

But though Dickens, who also rejected the offers of
John Leech and " Crowquill " in favour of Hablot
Knight Browne, would not accept Thackeray's aid,
Thackeray subsequently found some authors more
obliging, and he contributed, besides the illustrations
to the little burlesques, "King Glumpus" (1837) ^^^
"The Exquisites" (1839), twelve plates to Douglas
Jerrold's " Men of Character" (1838), and, for ;^20, the
same number of coloured sketches to Charles Green-
street Addisons's "Damascus and Palmyra" (1838).
Indeed, in spite of the fact that he made no reference to
the matter in the speech from which a passage is quoted
above, to the end of his days he poured forth drawings
in great profusion.

Thackeray stands alone as a great author who illus-
trated his own books. Besides contributing many
hundred sketches to Pimc/i, he produced the designs
for the "Yellowplush Correspondence", "Major Ga-
hagan's Reminiscences", "Catherine", "The Paris
Sketch Book", " The Great Hoggarty Diamond", "The
Irish Sketch Book", " From Cornhill to Grand Cairo",
"Vanity Fair", "Mrs. Perkins's Ball", " Our Street",
"Pendennis", "Dr. Birch and His Young Friends",
"The Kickleburys on the Rhine", "The Rose and
the Ring", "The Virginians", " Lovel the Widower",

1836] AS ILLUSTRATOR 105

and the *' Roundabout Papers."^ He had intended to
illustrate ''The Newcomes," but eventually he aban-
doned the idea.

I have turned away one artist : the poor creature
was utterly incompetent to depict the sublime, grace-
ful, and pathetic personages and events with which
this history will most assuredly abound. ^

Richard Doyle was entrusted with the task, and the
two sketches designed by Thackeray were adapted and
redrawn by the former. "He does beautifully easily
what I want to do and can't," Thackeray declared, with
characteristic generosity. Afterwards, however, he re-
gretted he had entrusted the work to another hand, and
when Whitwell Elwin expressed his admiration for the
conception of the Colonel's face and figure, " Oh, yes,"
said Thackeray, "but I gave it to Doyle. I drew the
Colonel for him." Thackeray found it troublesome to
draw on the wood the illustrations for " Philip," and
some of the sketches were made on paper and redrawn
on wood, but not to his satisfaction. Frederick Walker
was then engaged to redraw some of the sketches, but
soon he declared himself capable of better work, and
declined to continue the task ; so in the end the work
was left in his hands with only written instructions or
sometimes a rough pen-and-ink sketch by the author —
the "Good Samaritans" (in chapter xv.) being the first
illustration executed by Walker on his own responsi-
bility.

All his life Thackeray preferred the pencil to the

^ The " Fitz-Boodle Papers ", " Barry Lyndon " and " Esmond " alone
among- Thackeray's works were published without illustrations.
^ The Newcomes, chap. xv.

io6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-

pen. Often he found writing wearisome and the strain
of composition irksome ; and there were times even
when he almost hated the chain that held him to the
desk ; but he always turned to the drawing-board with
pleasure. "The hours which he spent upon his draw-
ing-blocks and Sketch-books brought no fatigue or
weariness : they were of endless interest and amuse-
ment to him, and rested him when he was tired," Lady
Ritchie has recorded. " It was only when he came to
etch upon steel or to draw for the engraver upon wood
that he complained of effort and want of ease ; and we
used often to wish that his drawings could be given as
they were first made, without the various transmigra-
tions of wood and steel, and engraver's toil, and
printer's ink."^

Thackeray was at his best when illustrating his
writings, and there has rarely been an artist who could
make his drawings so helpful to the text, for the charac-
ters are as truly depicted by the pencil as by the pen,
and they tell the story together. His drawing may not
always have been correct, the perspective may occa-
sionally have been wrong — "Some of my folk have
scarcely more legs than Miss Biffin ; they have fins
instead of hands — they squint almost every one of
them! "^ — but for quaint fancy and humour his illustra-
tions have rarely been surpassed.

Take "Vanity Fair," and study the pictorial work from
the opening initial " W" to the tailpiece, at the end of the
last chapter, which shows the children shutting up the
puppets in the box after the play is played out. Look

^ The Orphan of Pimlico : Preface.

^ A Grumble About the Christmas Books.

Kli

1836] HIS DRAWINGS 107

at the drawings on the cover of the monthly parts and
on the title-page — the former portraying the jester,
standing on the cask, haranguing the open-mouthed
yokels ; the latter presenting the jester, lying on the
grass, weary and worn, looking into a glass which
reflects a countenance that is anything but gay. Look
at Becky showing off her doll, " Miss Jemmy," to her
father's rather dissolute Bohemian friends ; or, all
alone, building a house of cards that, we know full
well, will sooner or later fall, after the fashion of such
unstable structures ; or fishing, and trying to hook
stupid, hulking, conceited Mr. Jos; or as a governess
in the schoolroom, paying just so much attention to
her charges as might be expected from a lady with her
turn of mind. Why, the slender thread of the story of
Miss Rebecca Sharp might be reconstructed from the
drawings. Look at Dobbin and Cuff fighting (in a
capital C) ; or at Miss Eliza Styles (better known as
Captain Rawdon Crawley) reading a letter from his
wife at Mr. Barnet's, saddler, Knightsbridge, near the
barracks ; or at Moss arresting Rawdon in Gaunt
Square, while the bailiff's companion whistles for a
hackney coach to convey the trio to the sponging house
in Cursitor Street. Glance at the tailpiece to chapter ix
— a delightful sketch of that sad jester Thackeray
himself. Turn over the pages and, on the eve of the
battle of Waterloo, compare Becky, slumbering tran-
quilly, with Mrs. Major O'Dowd, as Venus, preparing
the arms of Mars, her husband, who is sleeping
soundly. Turn over again, and observe Miss Horrocks
of the ribbons playing the piano with the sycophantic
Hester by her side, all admiration ; and then glance at

io8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-

Sir Pitt nursed by Hester, the ill-conditioned bullying
attendant.

If space permitted, it would be easy to go through
each of the novels and point out sketch after sketch
delightful to regard. The "Christmas Books" owe
more than half their charm to the plates. Take the
portraits of Mr. Titmarsh and Mr. Mulligan of Bally-
mulligan, of Mr. Flam, of Mr. Larkins ; of those
famous literary lights. Miss Bunion and Mr. Hicks ;
of Miss Trotter, whose face brightens at the arrival of
the hideous but wealthy Lord Methuselah ; of Mr.
Beaumoris, Mr. Grig, and Mr. Flanders, and a host
of others, all present at "Mrs. Perkins's Ball." "I
think that the empty faces of the dance-room were
never done better," said Edward FitzGerald, who
years earlier had been so pleased with Thackeray's
fourteen little coloured drawings in his copy of
" Undine" that he wrote to John Allen, asking if he
did not think it would make a nice book to publish all
the papers about Sir Roger de Coverley alone, with
illustrations by Thackeray. "Our Street" contains
all sorts and conditions of people duly sketched by
the author, from the inquisitive old woman looking
out of the window to "the lady whom nobody
knows"; from "the lion of the street," Clarence
Bulbul, who wrote the Mayfair love-song, "The
Cane-Bottomed Chair," to "the happy family," in
which plate is depicted the pleasant home-life of the
Fairfaxes. The drawings of "The Rose and the
Ring " which have delighted several generations of
great and small children, were begun at Rome as
Twelfth Night pictures for his children. Thackeray

1836] GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 109

revelled in this labour of love : all his life he loved to
amuse children, and to his fondness for the '' little
'uns " he has left this abiding memorial.

Thackeray suffered from no misapprehension as to
the value of his gift, and he was well aware of his
limitations. When a man in all good faith said to
him, " But you c«;z draw," he set him down instantly
— and unjustly — as a snob and a flatterer ; and Mr.
Corkran found him fretting over a sketch : " Look,"
he said to the visitor, "now, Cruikshank, by a few
touches, throwing some light and shadow here and
there, would make this a picture. How it is I know
not, but I certainly cannot do it at all." " My pencils
don't draw like yours," he said prettily to Marcus
Stone ; and, laughing at himself, he wrote in the
'fifties to Edmund Yates :

You have a new artist on the Tram, I see, dear
Yates. I have been looking at his work, and I have
solved a problem. I find there is a man alive who
draws worse than myself.^

Cruikshank claimed Thackeray as a pupil. He
taught him etching, and thought him clever with his
pencil, though, he declared, " He had not the patience
to be an artist with pencil or brush. I used to tell
him that to be an artist was to burrow along like a
mole, heaving up a little mound here and there for
a long distance."^ Thackeray, indeed, was not ignor-
ant of his lack of technical skill as an etcher, and he
asked Henry Vizetelly to find him someone who would
etch from his water-colour sketch the frontispiece to

* Yates : Recollections and Experiences.

^ Blanchard Jerrold : Life of George Cruikshank.

no WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1832-
" From Cornhill to Grand Cairo." The work was
given to a young man named Thwaites, who subse-
quently put on the wood a number of the drawings
for ''Mrs. Perkins's Ball."

I return the drawings after making a few altera-
tions in them (Thackeray wrote to Vizetelly).
Present Mr. Titmarsh's compliments to your
talented young man, and say M. A. T. would take
it as a great favour if he would kindly confine his
improvements to the Mulligan's and Mrs. Perkins's
other guests' extremities. In your young gentle-
man's otherwise praiseworthy corrections of my
vile drawing, a certain je ne sais qiioiy which I
flatter myself exists in the original sketches, seems
to have given him the slip, and I have tried in vain
to recapture it. Somehow I prefer my own Nurem-
berg dolls to Mr. Thwaites's superfine wax models.^

Vizetelly said Thackeray was almost as fastidious
as Mr. Ruskin in regard to the manner in which
his sketches were transferred to the wood ; and
Thackeray once complained to " Practical John "
Hollingshead : 'Tm not a first-rate artist, I know;
but I'm not half as bad as those fellows, the wood-
cutters, make me " ; and indeed much of the delicacy
of expression was lost in the process. But though
Thackeray lacked academic correctness and technical
mastery, the undeniable originality and humour of
his drawings will secure for them a very long lease
of life and for him a high place in the ranks of the
caricaturists. Charlotte Bronte thought "Thackeray's
rude, careless sketches preferable to thousands of
carefully finished paintings " ;2 and when the question

^ Vizetelly: Glances Back Through Seventy Years, Vol. I, p. 283.
^ Clement Shorter : The Brontes, Vol. II, p. 37.

1836] CHARLOTTE BRONTE iii

of an illustrator for one of her novels was raised,
*' You will not easily find a second Thackeray," she
wrote to W. S. Williamson March 11, 1848. '* How
he can render, with a few black lines and dots, shades
of expression so fine, so real ; traits of character so
minute, so subtle, so difficult to seize and fix, I cannot
tell — I can only wonder and admire. Thackeray may
not be a painter, but he is a wizard of a draughts-
man ; touched with his pencil, paper lives. And then
his drawing is so refreshing ; after the wooden limbs
one is accustomed to see portrayed by commonplace
illustrators, his shapes of bone and muscle clothed
with flesh, correct in proportion and anatomy, are a
real relief. All is true in Thackeray. If Truth were
again a goddess, Thackeray should be her high
priest. "1

^ Clement Shorter : The Brontes, Vol. I, p. 402.

CHAPTER VIII

MARRIAGE (1836-1840)

Major Carmichael-Smyth founds the Constitutional newspaper — and
appoints Thackeray Paris Correspondent — Thackeray marries
Isabella Getkin Creagh Shawe at Paris — works on Galignant s Mes-
senger — happy days — " Bouillabaisse " — summoned to London to
manag'e the Constitutional — the failure of the Constitutional —
Thackeray and his wife stay with his mother — takes a house in Great
Coram Street, Bloomsbury — the birth of his two eldest daughters —
Bloomsbury in his books — the Foundling- Hospital — his fondness of
children — the British Museum — "Going to See a Man Hanged" —
his third daughter born — his wife's illness — the compulsory separa-
tion — the happiness of his brief married life — his love for his
children.

THACKERAY, who had abandoned journal-
ism for painting, and painting for cari-
cature, was to revert to his first em-
ployment. In the spring of 1836 he was
summoned to London by Major Carmichael-Smyth to
assist at the discussion of a project to establish a new
radical daily paper, which should advocate the ballot,
triennial parliaments, the complete freedom of the
press, and religious liberty and equality. Joseph
Hume, George Grote, George Evans, Charles Duller,
William Ewart, Sir William Molesworth, John Arthur
Roebuck, and other leaders of the advanced party pro-
mised their support ; and the Metropolitan Newspaper
Company was formed, with a capital of £60,000 in six

112

1836] THE CONSTITUTIONAL 113

thousand shares of ;^io each — £^ paid up — with Major
Carmichael-Smyth as chairman. The Public Ledger^
a respectable paper with a small and ever decreasing
circulation, was purchased, renamed the Constitutional
{and Public Ledger)^ and the first number under the
auspices of the Company appeared on September 15,
1836, on which day the Stamp Duty on newspapers
was reduced. Laman Blanchard was installed in the
editorial chair ; to Thornton Hunt, the eldest son of
Leigh Hunt, was entrusted the political department ;
and, through the influence of his stepfather, Thackeray
was appointed Paris Correspondent with a salary of
£afxt a year.

**That excellent and facetious being, Thackeray . . .
has fallen in love, and talks of being married in less
than twenty years. What is there so affecting as
matrimony?" Henry Reeve noted in his diary on
January 16, 1836. " I dined yesterday with his object,
who is a nice, simple, girlish girl ; a niece of old
Colonel Shawe, whom one always meets at the Stir-
lings." ^ The " nice, simple, girlish girl " was Isabella
Getkin Creagh Shawe, and Thackeray was married to
her on April 20, 1836, the ceremony being performed
at the British Embassy at Paris by Bishop Luscombe.

Thackeray was at this time mainly dependent on his
salary from the Constitutional^ but financial considera-
tions were not regarded : he took the step fearlessly,
and neither then nor later would admit its imprudence.
Indeed, he was always an advocate of what the world
calls improvident marriages, and his liking for Harry
Longueville Jones, with whom he was *' working on

^ J. K. Laughton : Memoirs of Henry Reeve, Vol. I, p. 5^.

114 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1836-

Galignani's newspaper for ten francs a day very cheer-
fully," had its origin in the fact that that young man
had "flung up his fellow and tutorship at Cambridge
in order to marry on nothing a year."^ Some sixteen
years later, when he had come to forty years, he en-
dorsed the views of his youth.

I married with ;^400 paid by a newspaper, which
failed six months afterwards, and always love to hear
of a young fellow testing his fortune bravely in that
way [he wrote to William Webb Follett Synge]. . . .
Though my marriage was a wreck, as you know,
I would do it again, for behold. Love is the crown
and completion of all earthly good. A man who is
afraid of his fortune never deserved one.^

The young couple rented apartments in the Rue
Neuve St. Augustin, not far from the offices of
Galignani's Messenger in the Rue Vivienne : half-way
between these places was No. 16, Rue Neuve des
Petits Champs ("The New Street of the Little Fields"),
occupied, as an old guide-book gives it, by Terre
jeune, Restaurateur ; house noted for Spanish dishes,
and for good wines, and more especially for the
Marseilles dish, "Bouillabaisse." Here the newly
married pair came frequently to dine, meeting many
friends who also appreciated the cuisine. Many years
after, when Terre was dead and Gillet reigned in his
stead, Thackeray, alone, revisited the eating-house.

Ah me ! how quick the days are flitting !

I mind me of a time that's gone,
When here I'd sit, as now I'm sitting,

In this same place — but not alone.

^ A Collection of Letters of W. M. Thackeray, p, 36.
? Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 240.

1840] MARRIAGE 115

A fair young" form was nestled near me,
A dear, dear face looked fondly up.

And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me
— There's no one now to share my cup

I drink it as the Fates ordain it.

Come, fill it, and have done with rhymes :
Fill up the lonely glass, and drain it

In memory of dear old times.
Welcome the wine, whate'er the seal is ;

And sit you down and say your grace
With thankful heart, whate'er the meal is.

— Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse ! ^

These happy days at Paris did not last long. Thack-
eray's first letter to the Constitutional appeared in the
issue for September 19, 1836, and neither this nor his
subsequent contributions to the journal call for com-
ment : their interest was purely topical, and the pre-
dominant note, as readers of *'The Paris Sketch Book"
would expect, a great dislike of the Government of
July.^ Like the National Standard the Constitutional
never attracted the public, and little good resulted from
the announcement on January 2, 1837, that Grote,
Ewart, Hume, Roebuck, Molesworth, Buller, and
others ''do thereby engage to take in such newspaper
for a twelvemonth at the least, and we recommend it to
the support of our friends, entertaining similar views ;
believing that such a newspaper is much wanted as an

^ The Ballad of Bouillabaisse {Punch, February 17, 1849).

^ Thackeray's letters to the Constitutional were collected by Mr.
W. T, Spencer and published in 1899 in the volume, " W. M. Thackeray
in the National Standard 'And Constitutional." They were included by
the present writer in Macmillan's edition of the Collected Works, Vol. xi,
" The Yellowplush Papers, etc," ; 1903.

ii6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1836-

organ of Uncompromising Liberal Principles and that it
will prove extensively useful to the interests of Reform
everywhere." Thackeray's last letter from Paris bears
the date February 15, 1837 5 ^"*^ immediately after this
was despatched he, with his wife, came to London to
attend a meeting called to discuss the affairs of the
Company owning the paper, already in a very unsatis-
factory condition. The contributors were unpaid, the
correspondent in Portugal, sent out to report on the
disturbances there, was destitute, and wrote letters
begging for a remittance ; and Laman Blanchard, with
a wife and five children to support, though writing
articles every day, had not been paid for months.
Thackeray, of course, could give little advice as to how
to run a daily paper without funds and deeply in debt ;
but, since to wind up the company spelt ruin, it was
decided to make a call on the shareholders of £1 a share,
and to make every effort to increase the circulation. On
March i, the paper, which had been increased from six
to seven columns on each of its four pages, was reduced
to its former size ; but it dragged on an unprofitable
existence until July i, when the last number (249)
appeared with a black border for the death of the King,
and an announcement, probably written by Thackeray,
explaining the cause of the failure of the paper.

The adverse circumstances have been various. In
the philosophy of ill-luck it may be laid down as a
principle, that every point of discouragement tends to
one common centre of defeat. When the fates do
concur in one's discomfiture their unanimity is won-
derful. So it has happened in the case of the Consti-
tutional. In the first place a delay of some months,
consequent upon the postponement of the newspaper

No. l8, AI.KION SIkKKl, HYDK J'ARK
ll'/nre 'I'hachfrny nntf his iiu/c stnyeii with Major nuci Mis. Cai-itiichnct-Siiiyih in iS^f

i84o] No. 13, GREAT CORAM STREET 117

stamp reduction, operated on the minds of many who
were originally parties to the enterprise ; in the
next, the majority of those who remained faithful
were wholly inexperienced in the art and practical
working of an important daily journal ; in the third,
and consequent upon the other two, there was the
want of those abundant means, and of that wise
application of resources, without which no efficient
organ of the interests of any class of men — to say
nothing of the interests of the first and greatest class
whose welfare has been our dearest aim and most
constant object — can be successfully established.
Then came further misgivings on the part of friends,
and the delusive undertakings of friends in disguise.

So the Constitutional went down, and in the wreck
was lost the greater part of the fortune of Major Car-
michael-Smyth.

When Thackeray and his wife came to London, they
stayed for a while with Major and Mrs. Carmichael-
Smyth at No. 18, Albion Street, Hyde Park ; but soon
"work was abundant and the future promising" enough
to allow of their setting up their home at No. 13, Great
Coram Street,^ which runs from Woburn Place to Bruns-
wick Square, parallel to the better known Guilford
Street, which connects Russell Square with Gray's Inn
Road. There was born in 1838 the Thackerays' eldest
daughter, Anne Isabella, now Lady Ritchie, but still
affectionately remembered as Miss Thackeray of the
many charming stories ; and later another child, Jane
who died in infancy. Readers of "The Great Hog-
garty Diamond " will realise how deeply this loss was
felt.

* In Great Coram Street at this time lived also, besides John Allen
John Leech and Charles Keene.

ii8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1836-

Bloomsbury had even then an old-world air and with
its many interesting associations made a deep impres-
sion upon the future novelist, who again and again
introduced the neighbourhood into his stories. Mr.
and Mrs. Samuel Hoggarty lived in lodgings in Lamb's
Conduit Street, where Mr. and Mrs. Brough called in
their splendid carriage and pair ; and it was in Hart
Street that little George Osborne attended the school
of the Rev. Laurence Veal, domestic chaplain to the
Earl of Bareacres, who prepared young gentlemen
and noblemen for the universities, the senate and
the learned professions ; whose system did not embrace
the degrading corporal severities still practised at the
ancient places of education, and in whose family the
pupils found the elegancies of refined society and the
confidence and affection of a home. In Great Coram
Street itself lived Mr. Todd, the junior partner in the
firm of Osborne and Todd. Osborne lived in Russell
Square, close by the Sedleys, on account of whose
daughter he disinherited his son ; but it was easier for
the old man to turn his son out of his house than to
remove him from his heart, and when the young soldier
died upon the field of Waterloo he erected a monument
on the wall of the church attached to the Foundling
Hospital.

The Foundling Hospital, a stone's-throw from his
house, attracted Thackeray, always susceptible to the
pleasures and sufferings of children.

There's somethingf, even in his bitterest mood,
That melts him at the sight of infanthood ;
Thank God that he can love the pure and good.

NO. I^, C.RKAT I'ORAM STKKK I', KKUNSWICK SiJl'AKK
117/rjr Tliackcray nil,/ /lis n<i/c lirrd jSjj—lS^o

i84o] LOVE OF CHILDREN 119

Thackeray's love for children was one of his most
pleasing characteristics. When James T. Fields, the
American publisher, was one day mentioning the vari-
ous sights he had seen in London, Thackeray, who
happened to overhear him, broke in with, "But you
haven't seen the greatest one yet. Go with me to-day to
St. Paul's, and hear the charity children sing." "So we
went," Fields has related, " and I saw the ' head cynic
of literature,' the * hater of humanity,' as a critical dunce
in the Tiines once called him, hiding his bowed head
wet with tears, while his whole frame shook with
emotion, as the children of poverty rose to pour out
their anthem of praise. Afterwards he wrote about it."^

There is one day in the year . . . when I
think St. Paul's presents the noblest sight in the
whole world : when five thousand charity children,
with cheeks like nosegays, and with sweet, fresh
voices, sing the hymn which makes every heart thrill
with praise and happiness. I have seen a hundred
grand sights in the world — coronations, Parisian
splendours, Crystal Palace openings, Pope's chapels
with their processions of long-tailed cardinals and
quavering choirs of fat soprani — but think in all
Christendom there is no such sight as Charity Chil-
dren's Day. Non Angli^ sed angeli. As one looks
at that beautiful multitude of innocents : as the first
note strikes : indeed one may almost fancy that
cherubs are singing.^

And elsewhere he has written :

To see a hundred boys marshalled in a chapel or
old hall ; to hear their sweet fresh voices when they
chant, and look in their brave calm faces: I say, does
not the sight and sound of them smite you, somehow,
with a pang of exquisite kindness ?

' The Four Georges — George the Third,

I20 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1836-

Thackeray delighted to play with children, to draw
caricatures for them, and, above all, delighted to take
them to the pantomime. There is a characteristic tale
told of him, that he was once asked by Herman
Merivale, whom as a boy he had invited to dinner at
his club, if he remembered the occasion. *'Oh, yes,"
said the great man, ''and I remember what I gave
you. Beefsteak and apricot omelette." The other
was delighted that his host should remember even the
details, and expressed his pleasure. "Yes," said
Thackeray, twinkling in his inimitable way, *' I always
give boys beefsteaks and apricot omelettes."

Near Great Coram Street was the British Museum,
and in the library Thackeray might often have been
seen at work.

Most Londoners — not all — have seen the British
Museum Library. I speak a caeur ouvert and pray
the kindly reader to bear with me. I have seen all
sorts of domes of Peters and Pauls, Sophia, Pan-
theon, — what not? — and have been struck by none
of them as much as by that catholic dome in
Bloomsbury, under which our million volumes are
housed. What peace, what love, what truth, what
beauty, what happiness for all, what generous kind-
ness for you and me, are here spread out ! It seems
to me one cannot sit down in that place without a
heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said
my grace at the table, and to have thanked Heaven
for this my English birthright, freely to partake of
these bountiful books, and speak the truth I find
there.^

Thackeray appreciated to the full the advantages of
the well-conducted library ; and when Sir Anthony

1 Nil Nisi Bonum.

i84o] THE BRITISH MUSEUM 121

Panizzi asked him to give evidence before the Select
Committee of the House of Commons, which was
ordered on April 24, i860, "to enquire into the
necessity for the extension of the British Museum,"
he replied that he would gladly come and say on
behalf of the British Museum what little he knew —
how he once came from Paris to London to write an
article on a review about French affairs, and how,
wh^n he went to the Bibliotheque du Roi, he could
only get one book at a time, and no sight of a cata-
logue. "But then I didn't go often," he added,
*' being disgusted with the place, and entering it as
a total stranger, without any recommendation."^

It was while living at Great Coram Street that
Thackeray indulged a morbid desire to see a man
hanged. Years before at Paris he had gone to see an
execution, but by some mischance had missed the
dismal spectacle. He was invited by Monckton Milnes
"to make one at the Hanging" of Courvoisier, the
murderer of Lord William Russell, in June 1840; and
he accepted with some show of eagerness. It was
customary then, when the execution took place at five
or six in the morning, for the intending spectators to
go eastward after a very late supper.

You must not think me inhospitable in refusing to
sit up. I must go to bed, that's the fact, or I never
shall be able to attend to the work of to-morrow
properly. If you like to come here and have a sofa,
it is at your service, but I most strongly recommend
sleep as a preparation for the day's pleasure."

^ Letter to Panizzi, i860, in the MSS. Department of the British
Museum Library.

* Wemyss Reid : Life of Lord Houghton, Vol. \, p. 427.

122 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1836-

The scene made a deep impression on him, and he
wrote of it with deep feeling :

There is some talk of the terror which the sight of
this spectacle inspires. ... I fully confess that I
came away down Snow Hill that morning with a
disgust for murder, but it was for the murder I saw
done [he wrote after witnessing the scene]. This is
the 20th of July, and I may be permitted for my part
to declare that, for the last fourteen days, so salutary
has the impression of the butchery been upon me,
I have had the man's face continually before my
eyes ; that I can see Mr. Ketch at this moment, with
an easy air, taking the rope from his pocket ; that
I feel myself ashamed and degraded at the brutal
curiosity which took me to that brutal sight ; and
that I pray to Almighty God to cause this disgrace-
ful sin to pass from among us, and to cleanse our
land of blood.

Later at Cairo, when invited to witness a similar
spectacle, *' Seeing one man hanged is quite enough
in the course of a life," he replied, *' ^jy ai ete^'' as
the Frenchman said of hunting." In **The Irish
Sketch Book " he repeated the sentiments expressed
in the Eraser article.

I confess, for my part, to that common cant and
sickly sentimentality, which, thank God ! is felt by
a great number of people nowadays, and which leads
them to revolt against murder, whether performed
by a ruffian's knife or a hangman's rope : whether
accompanied by a curse from the thief as he blows
his victim's brains out, or a prayer from my lord on
the bench in his wig and black cap.^

Nevertheless he eventually changed his opinion, and
when someone praised his ''Hanging" article, "I

^ Going to sec a Man Hanged (Fraser's Magazine, August 1840).
^ The Irish Sketch Book, chap, i.

i\

i84o] MRS. THACKERAY 123

think I was wrong," he remarked. " My feelings were
overwrought. These murderers are such devils, after
all." But though he ceased to advocate the abolition
of the death-sentence, he never refrained from insisting
that the ceremony should be performed in private.

Thackeray's marriage was very happy, but unfortu-
nately the happiness was not of long duration. His
third daughter, Harriet Marion, afterwards Mrs. Leslie
Stephen, was born on May 28, 1840; and shortly after
he went to Belgium to collect material for a Sketch-
Book.^ Mrs. Thackeray had almost recovered her health
when he left her, but he was summoned home to find her
*'in a strange state of languor and mental inactivity,"
which he at first regarded as a not unusual sequence of
an illness that would pass away in course of time. He
threw aside all work, sent the children to his mother,
and took his wife to her parents in Ireland. Afterwards
he went with her to Paris, where for a while she was in
a maison de sante ; and later, hoping against hope that
the cloud on her intellect would dissolve, for many
months travelled with her from watering-place to
watering-place, as the doctors as a last resource had
recommended. At last Thackeray was compelled to
realise that his wife would never recover sufficiently to
undertake the duties of a mother and a wife. Though
taking interest in any pleasant things around her,
especially in music, she was unable to manage her life,
and since it was essential she should be properly cared

^ The Belgian Sketch-Book was never written, but Thackeray used
his recollections of this trip in "Little Travels and Roadside Sketches"
(Fraser's Magazine, May and October 1844, January 1845).

124 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY C1836-

for, she was placed with Mr. and Mrs. Thompson at
Leigh, in Essex. She outlived her husband by so many
years that it was with a shock, since she had already
been dead to the world for nearly forty years, that the
announcement of her death was read. She was buried
at Leigh, not in the graveyard by the church, but in a
cemetery farther inland. The memorial stone, sur-
mounted by an Irish cross, bears the following in-
scription : —

To the Dear Memory of

Isabella Getkin Thackeray.

Born 1818, Married 1836 to

William Makepeace Thackeray.

She died at Leigh, January 11, 1894, aged 76.

How sad, how awful, it was ! The man with his
great heart, with his yearning for love and affection
that, from this time forth, breathes through his letters
and his books. To be separated from the woman he
had chosen for his companion through life, and whose
presence had cheered him when his fortunes were at
their lowest ebb, and his reputation was yet to make !
How hard it was that she should be taken from him
before she could enjoy the great fame ! How much
he loved her, and how deeply he felt the blow that
shattered his happiness and his home, he never
divulged. He was not a man to parade his domestic
sorrows : he might think of them in solitude, but if a
visitor entered he would force himself to look up imme-
diately with a smile and a joke. Once, however, he
made a reference in a book, to his bereavement, in
a note prefixed to a reprint of the fragment of **A
Shabby Genteel Story."

i84o] A SAD ENDING 125

It was my intention to complete the little story of
which only the first part is here written. . . . The
tale was interrupted at a sad period of the writer's
own life. The colours are long since dry ; the
artist's hand is changed. It is best to leave the
sketch as it was when it was first designed seven-
teen years ago. The memory of the past is re-
newed as he looks at it

* * Die Bilder froher Tage
Und manche liebe Schatten steigen auf." ^

"It was written," he said, writing of ''The Great
Hoggarty Diamond," "at a time of great affliction,
when my heart was very soft and humble. Amen.
Ich hahe auch geliebty'^ " I was as happy as the day
was long with her," he told a cousin after he had re-
turned alone, and worse than alone, to the desolate
house in Great Coram Street ; and one day when
Trollope's groom said to him, "I hear you have
written a book upon Ireland, and are always making
fun of the Irish. You don't like us," Thackeray's eyes
filled with tears as he thought of his wife — born in
County Cork — and he replied, turning away his head,
" God help me ! all that I have loved best in the world
is Irish."

Well might Thackeray echo the lines of poor broken-
hearted Thekla's song :

* ' Ich habe genossen das irdische Gliick,
Ich habe gelebt und geliebet"

Yet even in his bitterest moments he did not cry,
with Thekla,

" Das Hers ist gestorberiy die Welt ist leer^
Und weiter gibt sie dem Wiinsche nichts mehr"

^ Miscellanies^ Vol. Ill, 1856. The quotation is from the Introduc-
tion to Faust. ^ A Collectio?i of Letters of IV. M. Thackeray, p. 24.

126 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1836-

for even in his most bitter grief he remembered his
children and his parents ; and set himself resolutely
to work to make money so that when his children were
old enough he could provide a comfortable home for
them, dower them well, and, when he died, leave them,
at least, a competency.

From this time, more than ever, the thought of his
children was the mainspring of most of his actions ;
and whether at home or abroad, the " little girls " were
always in his thoughts.

And when, its force expended,
The harmless storm was ended,
And as the sunrise splendid

Came blushing o'er the sea ;
I thought, as day was breaking,
My little girls were waking.
And smiling, and making

A prayer at home for me.^

*'I sat up with the children and talked to them of
their mother," he told Mrs. Brookfield. " It is my
pleasure to tell them how humble-minded their mother
was." He took them to the Colosseum on their birth-
days ; or the Zoological Gardens, where they amused
themselves in finding likenesses to their friends in
many of the animals ("Thank Evns !" is Thackeray's
expression of gratitude, " both of the girls have plenty
of fun and humour ") ; or went with them to the play
" in recompense for their disappointment in not getting
to the opening of the Great Exhibition, which they
had hopes of seeing."

Nothing in connection with the Cornhill Magazine

* From Cornhill to Grand Cairo — The White Squall,

i84o] HIS CHILDREN 127

gave Thackeray so much pleasure as his eldest
daughter's first contribution, ''Little Scholars."
"When I read it," he said to Fields, '*I blubbered
like a child. It was so good, so simple, and so honest ;
and my little girl wrote it, every word of it." " I
assure you that Annie can write ten times more
cleverly than I," he declared enthusiastically to Dean
Hole ; but the Dean tacitly declined to accept the
assurance. When a friend expressed admiration for
"The Story of Elizabeth", " I am glad," said Thack-
eray, " but I can form no opinion of its merits
as I have not read it." "Not read it," came the
echo. "No, I dared not, I love her too much."
When the Aihenceum attacked the book, Thackeray
was very angry, and quarrelled with Jeaffreson,
whom, erroneously, he believed to have written the
review.^

For the sake of his children, Thackeray battled with
his constitutional timidity, and nerved himself to deliver
the two series of lectures — he, to whom public speaking
was misery ; and solely on their account made his trips
to America, hating the separation from them, and
longing all the time of his absence for the day of his
return.

It is a painful subject to dwell upon, a picture of
fearful sadness, this dreadful domestic affliction. His
fortune lost, his talents unrecognised, his beloved wife
taken from him ! Is it marvellous that Thackeray was
able to see the existence of evil as well as of good in the
world? Yet instead of embittering him, the great
sorrow chastened his soul, and made his later writings

^ The author was Geraldine Jewsbury.

128 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1840

more sympathetic than his earlier ; and the only use he
made henceforth of his great gift of sarcasm was to
protest with gentle hand against the follies of his
fellows, in the endeavour to indicate the path of hon-
our, virtue, goodness and mercy.

CHAPTER IX

IN GRUB STREET (1837-1846)

Writes for the Times — and for Fraser's Magazine — his earliest contribu-
tions to Fraser's Magazine — the authorship of " Elizabeth Brown-
rig-ge" — and the resemblance between that story and "Catherine" —
" Fashnable Fax and Polite Annygoats" — Mr. Yellovvplush's other
papers — strikes for higher pay — his qualifications as a writer for
the periodical press — his knowledge of art and foreig-n lang-uages —
sugg'ests himself for the editorship of the Foreigyi Quarterly Review
— and as a contributor to Blackwood s Magazine — Sir Henry Cole's
tribute to his powers — the Anti-Corn Law Circular — " The Pen
and the Album " — writes for many periodicals — contributions to
Fraser's Magazine — "The Paris Sketch Book" — "The Second
Funeral of Napoleon " — replies to the Times' criticism of that
book — "Comic Tales and Sketches" — "The Irish Sketch Book" —
stays with Charles Lever at Templeogue — Thackeray on the Irish
— the " Life of Talleyrand" — " Barry Lyndon" — " From Cornhill to
Grand Cairo " — Carlyle resents Thackeray accepting' a free passage
— Thackeray's reply — " Titmarsh at Jerusalem" — Thackeray's re-
ligion — his indignation with Mrs. Trollope's interpretation of the
Scriptures — his dislike of the Jews and the Roman Catholics — his
attitude towards "Papal Aggression" — his attack on asceticism —
his doubts of the infallibility of the Bible — his deep sense of religion
— his fearless outlook on death.

IT was mentioned in the last chapter that when
Thackeray came to London early in the year
1837 he found work in plenty : it is now ne-
cessary to go back to that time to see what he
wrote then, and where he published what he wrote.

Mrs. Thackeray, it has been recorded, used laugh-
ingly to say she laid the foundation-stone of her

I.— K 129

I30 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

husband's fortune by introducing him to her relative,
Thomas Barnes, the editor of the Times. Barnes
employed Thackeray as a reviewer, and the young
man's first identified contribution, a review of Carlyle's
" French Revolution," appeared on August 3, 1837.
"I understand there have been many reviews of a
mixed character," the historian wrote to his brother.
'' I got one in the Times last week. The writer is one
Thackeray, a half-monstrous Cornish giant, kind of
painter, Cambridge man, and Paris newspaper cor-
respondent, who is now writing for his life in London.
. . . His article is rather like him, and, I suppose,
calculated to do the book good." This is the only
article in the Times of 1837 placed to Thackeray's
credit by the bibliographers ; but as, of the eleven
contributions known to be his in the following year,
six (filling ten columns) were printed in one month,
the natural assumption is that he was writing regularly
for the paper. Besides the review of Carlyle's book,
the only other identified writings of Thackeray in
1837 are: (i) "The Professor," a tale, in Bentley's
Magazine for September, (ii) "Fashnable Fax and
Polite Annygoats," and (iii) '* A Word on the Annuals,"
in the November and December numbers, respectively,
of Fraser's Magazine.

The mention of Eraser's brings us face to face with
the unsolved question that is the stumbling-block of
the biographers and the bibliographers of Thackeray ;
When did Thackeray begin to contribute to this
magazine, in which appeared the best of his early
work? The subject is the more interesting because,
more or less directly, it involves the question of the

%» . ,^^ ♦^ //^ Cti^^-J

m]

1846] ELIZABETH BROWNRIGGE 131

much -discussed and much - disputed authorship of
*' Elizabeth Brownrigge : A Tale," printed in this
periodical in August and September, 1832.

Dr. John Brown, in an article published in 1864, was
the first person to attribute to Thackeray this parody of
"Eugene Aram " ; ^ and then, after an interval, the
same opinion was expressed by Mr. Swinburne : "Just
before ' Catherine ' appeared another burlesque and
grotesque horror — * Elizabeth Brownrigge,' a story in
two parts, which ought to be Thackeray's, for, if it is
not, he stole the idea, and to some extent the style, of
his parodies on novels of criminal life, from this first
sketch of the kind."- On the strength of the belief of
these eminent critics, Mr. Shepherd reprinted the satire
in a collection of Thackeray's minor writings, "Sultan
Stork," and included it, without a query-mark, in the
bibliography appended to that volume. A few years
later Mr. C. P. Anderson gave it, also without a query-
mark, in his bibliography of Thackeray ;2 and, more
recently, Mr. Charles Whibley has expressed his
opinion that there is little doubt it is from Thackeray's
hand.^ In opposition to this view are Mr. J. P. John-
son, who can see in it neither the touch nor the manner
of Thackeray,^ and Mr. M. H. Spielmann, who is
inclined to ascribe it to Douglas Jerrold on the ground
that it resembles the work of that author in the turns
of expression, the handling of sentences and the
peculiarities of dialogue.'' Certainly Jerrold, who had

^ North British Review.

* Letter to Richard Heme Shepherd, printed in Sultan Stork, p. vii.
^ Appended to Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, 1891.

* William Makepeace Thackeray {Modern English Writers), p. 28.
^ Early Writings of William Makepeace Thackeray.

® Bookman, April 1901. A Review of " Thackeray's Stray Papers."

132 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

written the ^'Brownrigg Papers" in the Weekly Times,
had, not long before the appearance of "Elizabeth
Brownrigge," issued a similar parody, entitled "The
Tutor Fiend and His Three Pupils."

The present writer, in a work published ten years
ago, stated his belief that Thackeray wrote "Elizabeth
Brownrigge" (although when reprinting it in "Thack-
eray's Stray Papers " he was careful to note that the
authorship was doubtful). " The satirical * Dedication
to the Author of " Eugene Aram " ' and the 'Advertise-
ment ' seem to be quite in Thackeray's style," he wrote
then. " Indeed, the whole story seems an immature
'Catherine.'" This opinion was, of course, arrived at
by a consideration of internal evidence, which is cer-
tainly strong, as the following extract from the " Dedi-
cation " shows : —

From the frequent perusal of older works of imagina-
tion, I had learned so to weave the incidents of my
story as to interest the feelings of the reader in
favour of virtue, and to increase his detestation of
vice. I have been taught by "Eugene Aram"
to mix vice and virtue up together in such an in-
extricable confusion as to render it impossible
that any preference should be given to either, or
that the one, indeed, should be at all distinguish-
able from the other. ... I am inclined to regard
you as an original discoverer in the world of literary
enterprise, and to reverence you as the father of
a new ^^ liisiis naturce school." There is no other
title by which your manner could be so aptly
designated. I am told, for instance, that in a former
work, having to paint an adulterer, you described
him as belonging to the class of country curates,
among whom, perhaps, such a criminal is not met
with once in a hundred years; while, on the contrary,
being in search of a tender-hearted, generous, senti-

1846] DISPUTED AUTHORSHIP 133

mental, high-minded hero of romance, you turned to
the pages of the "Newgate Calendar," and looked
for him in the list of men who have cut throats for
money, among whom a person in possession of such
qualities could never have been met at all. Want-
ing a shrewd, selfish, worldly, calculating valet,
you describe him as an old soldier, though he bears
not a single trait of the character which might have
been moulded by a long course of military service,
but, on the contrary, is marked by all the dis-
tinguishing features of a bankrupt attorney, or a
lame duck from the Stock Exchange. Having to
paint a cat, you endow her with all the idiosyn-
crasies of a dog.

In spite of the Titmarshian flavour of this and other
passages, the present writer has, however, abandoned
the theory that Thackeray was the author of "Eliza-
beth Brownrigge." It has been said that the tale
appeared in Eraser's Magazine in August and Septem-
ber, 1832 : that is to say, it must at latest have been
written in July of that year — in which month Thackeray
went to Paris, immediately after he came of age. It is
not to be denied that if Thackeray did write this, he
had special facilities for bringing it to the notice of the
editor of the periodical in which it appeared, for he was
on intimate terms with the editor in question, William
Maginn; but, on the other hand, if he did write "Eliza-
beth Brownrigge" in July 1832, how is it that he did
not follow up this ambitious start? It is true that
several articles in subsequent numbers of the magazine
are possibly by him, and a set of verses in May 1834
are known to be from his pen : but not even Mr. C. P.
Johnson, the most indefatigable of bibliographers, puts
forward anything of equal merit until " Fashnable Fax

134 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

and Polite Annygoats" five years later. Indeed, when
'* Elizabeth Brownrigge " appeared, Thackeray had, so
far as is known, written nothing but the trifles for the
Snob and the Gow?isma?iy and, after it appeared, nothing
of any importance until 1837 5 ^^ ^s scarcely conceivable
that Thackeray should have written this clever satirical
story, and then have fallen to the low level of his contri-
butions to the National Standard. '' Elizabeth Brown-
rigge " must not, therefore, figure among Thackeray's
works.

Though Thackeray may not have written " Elizabeth
Brownrigge," it is practically certain that he con-
tributed frequently to Eraser's Magazine in and after
1834. Merely on the strength of the translation of
Beranger's "// etait un roi d'Yvetot,'' which appeared
in May of that year, it is highly improbable that even
a friendly editor would have ventured in 1837 ^o
commission the *' Yellowplush Correspondence" — for
from the heading, **The Yellowplush Correspond-
ence — Fashnable Fax and Polite Annygoats," it is
clear that there was to be a series of articles by
Charles Yellowplush, and, we know from a notebook
of Thackeray, that these were written, as all his
work was then and after, from hand to mouth.
There is further proof that Thackeray was a contributor
in the frontispiece of the magazine for January 1835,
a picture by Maclise showing the principal writers for
the periodical dining at the house of the proprietor :
Crofton Croker, Lockhart, Hook, Brewster, Moir,
D'Orsay, Allan Cunningham, Carlyle, Brydges, Gleig,
Mahony, Irving, ''Barry Cornwall," Southey, Percival
Bankes, Churchill, Murphy, Macwish, Ainsworth,

1846] ERASER'S MAGAZINE 135

Coleridge, Hogg, Gait, Dunlop, Jerdan, and, four
seats from Maginn, our Mr. Titmarsh.

What Thackeray wrote for Eraser's Magazine before
November 1837 none now can say. He may have con-
tributed the reviews of Whitehead's "Lives and Exploits
of English Highwaymen " (March 1834), of " -^ Dozen
Novels" including Miss Edgeworth's "Helen" (April
1834), of Ainsworth's " Rookwood " (June 1834, ^"d
again on the appearance of the third edition, April
1836), Mrs. Trollope's " Paris and the Parisian " (Feb-
ruary 1836) ; and the " Letters from Cambridge about
the Art of Plucking" (June, July, August, 1836). "The
Jew of York" (September 1836), and the reviews of
James Grant's "The Great Metropolis" (December

1836) and of Landor's "Satire on Satirists" (April

1837) ni3.y be from his pen, as well as many other
articles. It is sufficient, however, to assume that he
contributed to the periodical, and that he scored his
first great success with a review of " My Book, or, The
Anatomy of Conduct," by one John Henry Sketton, a
half-demented West-end linen-draper, who had con-
ceived the idea that it was his mission in life to instruct
the world in the true art of etiquette. This review, as
all the world knows, was the famous " Fashnable Fax
and Polite Annygoats," the first paper written by Mr.
Charles Yellowplush, who dated his contribution from
"No. — Grosvenor Square, loth October, (N.B. Hairy
Bell)." To this, which appeared in Eraser's Magazine
for November 1837, was appended a note, written by
Thackeray, but initialled O.Y. ("Oliver Yorke," i.e.,
William Maginn), unaccountably omitted from most
reprints : —

136 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

He who looketh from a tower sees more of the
battle than the knights and captains engaged in it ;
and, in like manner, he who stands behind a fashion-
able table knows more of society than the guests who
sit at the board. It is from this source that our great
novel-writers have drawn their experience, retailing
the truths which they learned. It is not impossible
that Mr. Yellowplush may continue his communica-
tions, when we shall be able to present the reader
with the only autheritic picture of fashionable life which
has been given to the world in our time.

Mr. Yellowplush did continue his communications :
in January came " Miss Shum's husband" ; from Feb-
ruary to July (with the exception of April) were narrated
the adventures of Mr. Deuceace ; and in August the
erudite footman made his " Ajew," reappearing on the
scene after an interval of more than two years to criticise
Bulwer's play, "The Sea-Captain." From the start the
"Correspondence" attracted so much attention, that,
after three instalments had been printed, the author,
who realised the value of the papers to the magazine,
felt justified in demanding, at the point of the sword,
as it were, higher remuneration for subsequent contri-
butions.

Now comes another, and not a very pleasant point,
on which I must speak [he wrote to James Eraser,
the proprietor, in February 1838, from Boulogne].
I hereby give notice that I shall strike for wages.

You pay more to others, I find, than to me ; and so
I intend to make some fresh conditions about Yellow-
plush. I shall write no more of that gentleman's
remarks except at the rate of twelve guineas a sheet,
and with a drawing for each number in which his
story appears — the drawing two guineas.

Pray do not be angry at this decision on my part ;
it is simply a bargain, which it is my duty to make.

1846] STRIKES FOR WAGES 137

Bad as he is, Mr. Yellowplush is the most popular
contributor to your magazine, and ought to be paid
accordingly : if he does not deserve more than the
monthly nurse, or the Blue Friars, I am a Dutch-
man.

I have been at work upon his adventures to-day,
and I will send them to you or not as you like, but in
common regard for myself I won't work under
price.

Well, I daresay you will be very indignant, and
swear I am the most mercenary of individuals. Not
so. But I am a better workman than most in your
crew and deserve a better price.

You must not, I repeat, be angry, or because we
differ as tradesmen break off a connection as friends.
Believe me that, whether I write for you or not, I
always shall be glad of your friendship and anxious
to have your good opinion.^

The sentence, " I am a better workman than most in
your crew," shows very clearly that Thackeray was under
no misapprehension as to the value of his support to
Regina, as members of the staff were pleased to call the
magazine ; and, if further proof is wanted, it shows that
he must have been a frequent contributor for some time
past, since he would scarcely have ventured, even on
the strength of three instalments of the ''Yellowplush
Papers," to take up an attitude so independent. Per-
haps after some discussion, which would account for
the absence of Mr. Yellowplush in March, the matter
at issue was adjusted, with the result that Thackeray
was a frequent contributor to the magazine for the next
nine years.

Thackeray's connection with Eraser's Magazine was
invaluable to him in the early days of his struggle for

1 Bookmart (Pittsburg, Pa.), April 18S7 ; Vol. IV, p. 446.

138 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

bread, since he could rely on it to provide him with a
certain, if small, income ; and if this periodical was
useful to him, there is also no question that he
rendered it yeoman's service. He had even at this
time qualifications eminently calculated to attract
editors : a pleasant, gossipy style, a practical ex-
perience with the pencil and the brush that enabled
him to write with understanding on art, and an
acquaintance with foreign countries and their litera-
tures, rare in a writer for the magazines, in a day
when travel was expensive. Indeed, there were not
many men who could have volunteered to review
French and German books, as Thackeray did when
Thomas Longman, the proprietor of the Edinburgh
Review, approached him as a possible contributor.

I hardly know what subject to point out as suited
to my capacity — light matter connected with art,
humorous reviews, critiques of novels — French sub-
jects, memoirs, poetry, history from Louis XV down-
ward and of an earlier period — that of Froissart and
Monstrelet — German light literature and poetry —
though of these I know but little beyond what I
learned in a year's residence in the country fourteen
years ago.^

It was this first-hand knowledge of the Continent
that emboldened Thackeray in 1842, on the eve of his
departure for Ireland to write a Sketch-Book for
Messrs. Chapman and Hall, to ask that firm for the
editorship of the Foreign Quarterly Review, which
they had just taken over.

If you have a new editor, as you will, no doubt,
and unless you have a great man like Mr. Carlyle

^ Letter in the British Museum Library.

r846] JOURNALISTIC QUALIFICATIONS 139

at the head of your undertaking, please to think of
your humble servant, who is very anxious to have
a calling and regular occupation of some kind, and
could really, I think, do your duty very well [he
wrote to Messrs. Chapman and Hall]. I know a
couple of languages, French and German, and could
know Italian in another month, having already a
smattering ; and if your intention is not to have
a pompous review, but a smart and lively one, I
believe I should make as good an editor as another.
... I need not tell you that I'm not so wedded to
the Irish trip but that I would forego it for some-
thing more lasting, or for a turn, say in Germany, as
ambassador of the Foreign Quarterly?-

The application was unsuccessful, for John Forster
secured the post, but a perusal of Thackeray's contri-
butions to the review show that here, too, his support
was valuable.^

It was the accomplishments just enumerated that
distinguished their possessor from the hack writers of
the day, and were of great service to him at the
beginning of his career ; though, once he had ob-
tained a footing, his success was mainly due to the fact
that he showed himself a master of the art of writing
'*on subjects relating to society in general, where a
writer may be allowed to display the humorous egOy
or a victim to be gently immolated."^

This was the sort of paper he preferred to compose,
and he sought an opening in BlackwoocTs Magazine.

Some years back you used to have pleasant papers
in Blackwood called "The World we live in"

^ Bookmart, November 1885, Vol. Ill, p. 146.

"^ These articles were recently discovered by Mr. Robert S. Garnett,
who published them in 1906 under the title of " The New Sketch Book."
^ Letter to Thomas Longman in the British Museum Library.

140 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

[Thackeray wrote to Alexander Blackwood in 1840].
I should be glad to do something of like nature if
you are disposed to accept my contributions. No
politics, as much fun and satire as I can muster,
literary talk and criticism of a spicy nature, and
general gossip. I belong to a couple of clubs in
this village and can get together plenty of rambling
stuff. For instance, for next month Courvoisier's
hanging (I'll go on purpose), strictures on C. Phil-
lip's speech, the London Library, Tom Carlyle, the
Times ^ and account of Willis that may be racy
enough. If the project smiles upon you, as the
French say, please write me word. I can't afford to
begin and send the MSS. in advance, for if you
shouldn't approve the design my labour would be
wasted, as the article would be written for your
special readers, and no good next month. ^

Blackwood would not have these papers ; and after
" Maga," a little later, declined ''The Great Hoggarty
Diamond " Thackeray wooed it no more.

The young writer had a warm friend and eulogist in
Mr. (after Sir Henry) Cole, who introduced him to
Cobden for service in the Anti-Corn Law Circular.
'* The artist is a genius both with his pen and his
pencil," Cole wrote with enthusiasm. "His vocation
is literary. He is full of humour and feeling.
Hitherto he has not had occasion to think much on
the subject of Corn Laws, and therefore wants the
stuff to work upon. He would like to combine both
writing and drawing when sufficiently primed, and
then he would write illustrated ballads, or tales, or any-
thing. I think you would find him a useful auxiliary."-
Thackeray without delay followed up this introduction.

^ Mrs. Oliphant : William Blackwood and Sons, Vol. II, p. 240.
^ Sir Henry Cole : Fifty Years of Public Work.

1846] MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 141

I shall be glad [he wrote to Cobden, for whom he
eventually drew two sketches] to do a single draw-
ing, series, or what you will, for nioney^ but I think
the one you sent me would not be effective enough
for the Circular^ the figures are too many for so small
a sized block, and the meaning mysterious — the
river, to be a river, should occupy a deuce of a space
[here he introduced a loose sketch] — even this fills
up your length almost. What do you think of
a howling group with this motto : Give us this day
our Daily Bread? The words are startling. Of
course I will do the proposed design if you wish.

Though it was to Eraser's Magazine Thackeray in
these early years contributed most largely, he supplied
drawings, stories, reviews, burlesques, and art criti-
cism to all quarters where they were acceptable.

Since he my faithful service did engage,
To follow him through his queer pilgrimage,
I've drawn and written many a line and page.

Caricatures I scribbled have, and rhymes,
And dinner-cards, and picture-pantomimes,
And many little children's books at times.

I've writ the foolish fancy of his brain ;

The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain ;

The idle word that he'd wish back again.

I've helped him to pen many a line for bread. ^

Thackeray contributed to those short-lived periodi-
cals, the Torch, the Parthenon, and the Britannia, and
also, it is said, to the Globe ; he wrote on *' Paris Cari-
catures " and on George Cruikshank's work for the
Westminster Review^ on French and German literature

^ The Pen and the Album.

142 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

for the Foreign Quarterly, and on art for the Pictorial
Times ; he drew political cartoons for the Anti-Corn
Law Circular, and discoursed on French manners and
customs in the Britannia and the Corsair (New York) ;
to Bentley's Magazine he sent ''The Professor"; to
Ainsmorth^s Magazine, "Sultan Stork"; to the New
Monthly Magazi7ie, " Mary Ancel ", " Major Gahagan "
and '* The Bedford Row Conspiracy " ; to Cruikshank's
Almanacks, " Stubbs's Calendar" and ''Barber
Cox"; and to the Omnibus, "The King of Brent-
ford's Testament." With the exception of "Major
Gahagan," however, his best work went to Eraser's
Magazine, where, after the " Yellowplush Corre-
spondence," appeared, besides many articles, "Cathe-
rine" in 1839, "A Shabby Genteel Story" in 1840,
"The Great Hoggarty Diamond " in 1841, the " Fitz-
Boodle Papers " in 1842, " Men's Wives" in 1843, and
" Barry Lyndon " in the following year.

The publication of the "Yellowplush Correspon-
dence " in Eraser's Magazine marks an epoch in
Thackeray's literary life, because thereafter he was
regarded as one of the best writers for the periodicals.
Such attention as it attracted in England, however,
was as nothing to the success it achieved in America,
where it was pirated before it had run its course, and
appeared in book-form without the " Ajew."

The success of the "Correspondence" inspired
Thackeray with the desire to offer some of his wares
in book-form,^ and in 1840 he induced John Macrone,
who four years earlier had brought out "Sketches by

' The article on Criiikshank, signed " ^," in the Westminster Review
for June 1S40 was at once issued in book-form anonymously.

i846] FIRST BOOKS 143

Boz," to publish a collection of articles and tales,
more than half of which had appeared in the magazines,
under the happy title of ''The Paris Sketch Book.
By Mr. Titmarsh." The venture met with no par-
ticular success, but its failure was not so complete as
to deter Hugh Cunningham, Macrone's successor,
from publishing 'Mn decent duodecimo" early in the
next year, ''The Second Funeral of Napoleon," with
which was included "The Chronicle of the Drum,"
which the periodicals had refused to print. Thackeray
had gone to Paris with Monckton Milnes in December
1840 to witness the ceremonies in connection with
the interment of the remains of Napoleon, brought
from St. Helena to rest in the Hotel des Invalides.
The little book was practically still-born. With
characteristic humour, the author wrote that his future
was assured, since he received yhd. royalty, and if
seven hundred and fifty thousand copies were disposed
of, he would net no less than ;^3,i25. "One hundred
copies have already been sold," he added, "so that
you see my fortune is very clear." Eventually the
sales rose to one hundred and forty and no more.
Possibly an article in the Times may account for this :
Thackeray thought the affair of the Second Funeral
humbug, and said so, which brought the reviewer
down on him.

Disbelief in heroes is very offensive to the world,
it must be confessed (Thackeray replied to the attack,
in the bantering manner he affected towards adverse
criticism). There, now, is the Times newspaper,
which the other day rated your humble servant for
publishing an account of one of the great humbugs
of modern days, viz.^ the late funeral of Napoleon —

144 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

which rated me, I say, and talked in its own grave,
roaring way, about the flippancy and conceit of
Titmarsh.

O, you thundering old Times! Napoleon's funeral
was a humbug, and your constant reader said so.
The people engaged in it were humbugs, and this
your Michael Angelo hinted at. There may be
irreverence in this, and the process of humbug-
hunting may end rather awkwardly for some people.
But surely there is no conceit. The shamming of
modesty is the most pert conceit of all, the pre-
cieiise affectation of deference where you don't feel
it, the sneaking acquiescence in lies. It is very
hard that a man may not tell the truth as he fancies
it, without being accused of conceit : but so the
world wags. As has already been prettily shown
in that before-mentioned little book about Napo-
leon, that is still to be had of the publisher's,
there is a ballad in the volume which, if properly
studied, will be alone worth two-and-sixpence to
any man.

Well, the funeral of Napoleon was a humbug ;
and being so, what was a man to call it? What do
we call a rose? Is it disrespectful to the pretty flower
to call it by its own innocent name? And, in like
manner, are we bound, out of respect for society,
to speak of humbug only in a circumlocutory way —
to call it something else, as they say some Indian
people do their devil — to wrap it up in riddles and
charades ? . . . Sacred word ! it is kept out of the
dictionaries, as if the great compilers of these pub-
lications were afraid to utter it. Well then, the
funeral of Napoleon was a humbug, as Titmarsh
wrote ; and a still better proof that it was a humbug
was this, that nobody bought Titmarsh's book, and
of the 10,000 copies made ready by the publisher not
above 3000 went off. It was a humbug, and an ex-
ploded humbug. Peace be to it ! Parlous d^autres
choses,^

^ On Men and Pictures {Fraser s Magazine, July 1841).

i846] "THE SECOND FUNERAL" 145

The failure of *'The Second Funeral of Napoleon"
deterred Cunningham from issuing a book by the same
author, announced at the end of the other, as ** Pre-
paring for Immediate Publication": ''Dinner Remi-
niscences, or, The Young Gormandizer's Guide at
Paris. By Mr. M. A. Titmarsh," whereupon Thackeray,
too, abandoned the idea, and used the material he had
collected in a paper, "The Memorials of Gorman-
dizing."^ Cunningham, however, still had enough belief
in Thackeray to issue, also in 1841, "Comic Tales
and Sketches. Edited and illustrated by Mr. Michael
Angelo Titmarsh," which contained the cream of
Thackeray's already printed writings, the " Yellow-
plush Correspondence", "Major Gahagan", "The Pro-
fessor "and "The Bedford Row Conspiracy." These
tales were accompanied by illustrations — the "Corre-
spondence" having a new set in place of those that
had appeared in Eraser's Magazine — and there was a
pictorial title-page on which are depicted Yellowplush,
Titmarsh, and Gahagan : "they are supposed to be
marching hand-in-hand, and are just on the very brink
of Immortality," so Thackeray concluded his preface
to the volume : and there, on the brink of Immortality,
they stand to this day seventy years later.

Whether Cunningham would have no more of Tit-
marsh, or Titmarsh would have no more of Cunning-
ham, the fact remains that Thackeray, who never for
a moment doubted he had "the right stuff" in him
that must sooner or later achieve success, sought else-
where a market for his manuscripts. He suggested to
Messrs. Chapman and Hall that he should write a

* Eraser s Magazhte, June 1841.
I.— L

146 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

book on Ireland, and, the firm liking this idea, he
toured through the Emerald Isle in the summer of
1842. Early in the next year the work appeared, not
under the title of ^'The Cockney in Ireland," which
the author told Laman Blanchard had been abandoned
owing to ''the pathetic remonstrances of the pub-
lishers,"^ but as " The Irish Sketch Book," and signed,
of course, with the now familiar " Michael Angelo
Titmarsh," though in the dedication Thackeray's name
appeared for the first time in one of his books :

Laying aside for the moment the travelling title of
Mr. Titmarsh, let me . . . subscribe myself, my
dear Lever, Most sincerely and gratefully yours,
W. M. Thackeray.

Charles Lever, it may be mentioned, was much
blamed by some of his countrymen for accepting the
dedication of a book that, according to them, was full
of blunders and exaggerations — though Edward Fitz-
Gerald wrote from Dublin : " It is all true. I ordered
a bath here, and when I got in the waiter said it was
heated to 90 degrees, but it was scalding ; he next
locked me up in the room instead of my locking him
out." Lever, however, ignored these attacks, and,
confident that the author had no intention to misrepre-
sent the Irish, reviewed the book favourably in the
Dublin University Magazine, of which he was then
editor. Lever was undoubtedly right in his belief, for
Thackeray never desired to do more than poke fun at
the eccentricities of the inhabitants of the neighbouring
island. If he amused himself by exaggerating their

1 Letter to Laman Blanchard, April 21, 1843 (•" Blanchard Jerrold :
A Day -with W. M. Thackeray, p. 328),

1846] CHARLES LEVER 147

pronunciation, he did no harm ; and who can help
smiling at the ''Lyra Hibernica"?

The noble Chair stud at the stair,

And bade the dthrums to thump ; and he
Did thus evince, to that Black Prince,

The welcome of his Company.
O fair the girls, and rich the curls,

And bright the oys, you saw there was ;
And fixed each oye, ye there could spoi,

On GINERAL JUNG BAHAWTHER was !

The Gineral great then tuk his sate

With all the other ginerals,
(Bedad his troat, his vest, his coat.

All bleezed with precious minerals) ;
And as he there, with princely air,

Recloinin on his cushion was.
All round about his royal chair

The squeezin and the pushin was.
O PAT, such girls, such Jukes, and Earls,

Such fashion and nobilitee !
Just think of TIM and fancy him

Amidst the hoigh gentility.^

During the visit to Ireland Thackeray stayed with
Lever at the latter's house at Templeogue, and when
Thackeray died more than thirty years after, the other
could still recall "with a heavy heart ... all our long
evenings together — mingling over plans for the future
many a jest and many a story." - Thackeray had read
Lever's books, but Lever at the outset knew no more
of Thackeray than he had learned from the letter of

^ Mr. Molony's Account of the Ball given to the Nepaulese Ambassador
by the Pejiinsular and Oriental Company.

^ Letter to John Blackwood, January 1864 (in E. Downey : Life and
Letters 0/ Charles Lever, Vol. II, p. 2.)

148 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

introduction that the Englishman brought, and their
relations were merely formal. At dinner, however,
Thackeray told his host that he would rather have
written Harry Lorrequer's rendering of the German
student song, '''■ Der Papst leht herrlich in der Weli"
(''The Pope he leads a happy life"), than anything
he had himself done in literature. When Lever was
convinced that Thackeray was sincere, he was very
pleased with the handsome compliment, and soon a
more cordial tone prevailed. ' ' Thackeray's conversation
flowed more easily on the whole, like the deeper
current of a river meandering through a cultivated
country, and only occasionally quickening its pace and
gathering force to dash over some well-selected point,"
Major Dwyer has written ; " Lever's, on the contrary,
resembled a mountain torrent, leaping over rocks and
precipices from pool to pool, in clouds of sparkling
spray." ^

" Mr. Titmarsh" had for some time been known to a
small and discerning section of the reading public, but,
as it has been shown, "The Irish Sketch Book" was
his first successful book : though a second edition was
not brought out until 1845, the thousand copies of the
first edition were soon exhausted. His new publishers
were pleased, and they arranged that the first volume
of a forthcoming monthly series of original biographical
works should be " A Life of Talleyrand. By W. M.
Thackeray."

I will engage to write the volume [Thackeray had
written to them on July 16, 1844], and to have the
MS. in your hands by December i, health permitting,

' W. Fitzpatrick : Life of Charles Lever,

1846] "FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO" 149

and will sign an agreement to that effect, if you will
have the goodness to prepare one.

This arrangement was first postponed in favour of
another Sketch-Book, ^" From Cornhill to Cairo," and
then, though Thackeray told his mother he had " read
enormously " for the projected biography, it was
abandoned in favour of another volume for which he
was to be paid ^200. The " little book about the
Mediterranean," as Thackeray referred to it, came to be
written by pure chance. " Mr. Titmarsh " was dining
at a club on August 20, 1844,^ and a friend told him he
was going for a tour in the Mediterranean arranged
by the P. and O. Company. The programme was
alluring : "In the space of a couple of months as many
men and cities were to be seen as Ulysses surveyed and
noted in ten years " : Malta, Athens, Smyrna, Con-
stantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo, were to be visited. The
idea of beholding these famous places took possession
of Thackeray's mind ; and when his friend suggested
he should join the party, he wavered.

Mr. Titmarsh considered all these things, but also
the difficulty of the situation ; he had but thirty-six
hours to get ready for so portentous a journey — he
had engagements at home — finally, could he afford
it? In spite of these objections, however, with every
glass of claret the enthusiasm somehow rose, and the
difficulties vanished. But when Mr. James, to crown
all, said that he had no doubt that his friends, the
Directors of the Peninsular and Oriental Company,
would make Mr. Titmarsh the present of a berth

^ In the Preface to the book, Thackeray, with characteristic careless-
ness, gives wrong dates both for the conversation at the club and his
departure : for July 24 and July 26 we must read August 20 and
August 22.

ISO WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

for the voyage, all objection ceased on his part : to
break his outstanding engagements — to write letters
to his amazed family, stating they were not to expect
him to dinner on Saturday fortnight, as he would be at
Jerusalem on that day — to purchase eighteen shirts
and lay in a sea stock of Russia ducks — was the
work of twenty-four hours. ^

Though this trip was an agreeable change to the
busy literary man, it was not all holiday. He had to
make notes for the book he had undertaken to write ;
he was sending contributions to Punchy notably the
''Travelling Notes "and "Punch in the East"; and
he finished " Barry Lyndon," which since January
had been appearing month by month in Eraser's
Magazine. The last chapters gave him more trouble
than anything he had done, and it was with a feeling
of relief that he brought it to a close. He finished
it at Malta, where the party was in quarantine, and he
noted in his diary : " November i. Wrote ' Barry' but
slowly, and with great difficulty." — "November 2.
Wrote * Barry' with no more success than yesterday."
— "November 3. Finished ' Barry,' after great throes,
late at night."

Though Thackeray worked hard, not only on " Barry
Lyndon " and for Punchy but also on the drawings for
" Mrs. Perkins's Ball," he enjoyed the tour and
thoroughly appreciated the change from town life.

It is worth while to have made the journey for the
pleasure : to have walked the deck on long nights,
and have thought of home. You have no leisure to
do so in the city. You don't see the heavens shine
above you so purely there, or the stars so clearly.^

^ From Comhill to Grand Cairo — Preface. ^ Ibid., chap. xiv.

1846] CARLYLE V. TITMARSH 151

Thackeray returned to England in December (1844),
and during the next year he wrote his account of the
tour which, with his own sketches transferred to the
wood by Eyre Crowe, appeared in January 1846 under
the title of: "Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to
Grand Cairo, by way of Lisbon, Athens, Constanti-
nople, and Jerusalem, Performed in the Steamers of
the Peninsular and Oriental Company. By Mr. M. A.
Titmarsh, Author of 'The Irish Sketch Book,' etc."

When ''From Cornhill to Grand Cairo" appeared,
Carlyle made no secret of the fact that he thought it
undignified of Thackeray to have accepted a free
passage, and he compared the transaction to the prac-
tice of a blind fiddler going to and fro on a penny
ferry-boat in Scotland, playing tunes to the passengers
for halfpence.^ Indeed, he felt so strongly on the
matter that he voiced his objection in Taifs Edinburgh
Magazine (March 1846).

It is that comparison of the blind fiddler who
^^ sends round his hat^^^ that ought to be devoted to
the indignation of the press of this kingdom
[Thackeray wrote in reply]. Your constant reader
has never played on the English — or on the Scotch
fiddle.

He leaves the sending round of hats to professors
of the Caledonian Cremona. He was not " crimped "
by the Peninsular and Oriental Company, nor called
upon to fiddle for their amusement, nor rewarded
with silver spoons by that excellent Company. A
gentleman who takes a vacant seat in a friend's
carriage is not supposed to receive a degrading
obligation, or called upon to pay for his ride by
extra joking, facetiousness, etc. ; nor surely is the
person who so gives you the use of his carriage

^ Sir Charles Gavan Duffy : Conversations 7vith Carlyle.

152 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

required to present you also with a guinea or to
pay your tavern bill. The critic, in fact, has shown
uncommon keenness in observing the manners of
his national violinist ; but must know more of them
than of the customs of English gentlemen.

If the critic himself is a man of letters and fiddles
professionally, why should he abuse his Stradivarius?
If he is some disguised nobleman of lofty birth,
superb breeding, and vast wealth, who only fiddles
for pleasure, he should spare those gentlefolks in
whose company he condescends to perform. But I
don't believe he's a noble amateur — I think he must
be a professional man of letters. It is only literary
men nowadays who commit this suicidal sort of im-
pertinence ; who sneak through the world ashamed
of their calling, and show their independence by
befouling the trade by which they live.^

Thackeray was made very angry by the attack, as
can be seen from the vigour of his rebuke, and his
subsequent reference to it in a Postscript added to the
book when a second edition was called for in August.
Though his friend Charles Duller told Thackeray he
agreed with Carlyle, and that it was also his opinion
that " Mr. Titmarsh " ought not to have gone fiddling
for halfpence or otherwise in any steamboat under the
sun,- it is not easy to see why all this virtuous
indignation and anxiety was felt for the dignity of
Thackeray and the literary profession ; for not only did
the latter not "puff "the Company, but, as he said, the
free passage was given to him not by the Company
but by one of his friends.

''Titmarsh at Jerusalem will certainly be an era
in Christianity," Edward FitzGerald had said when

1 Punch, March 14, 1846.

^ Sir Charles Gavan Duffy : Conversations with Carlyle.

i846] TITMARSH AT JERUSALEM 153

Thackeray went ''From Cornhill to Grand Cairo."
But Jerusalem did not arouse any feeling of mockery
in the traveller, who, since there was no false senti-
ment to excite his satire, was much moved at the sight
of the city of many traditions.

From this terrace [he wrote at Jerusalem], whence
we looked in the morning, a great part of the
city spread before us : — white domes upon domes,
and terraces of the same character as our own. Here
and there, from among these whitewashed mounds
round about, a minaret rose, or a rare date-tree ; but
the chief part of the vegetation near was that odious
tree, the prickly pear, — one huge green wart growing
out of another, armed with spikes, as inhospitable as
the aloe, without shelter or beauty. To the right
the Mosque of Omar rose ; the rising sun behind it.
Yonder steep tortuous lane before us, flanked by
ruined walls on either side, has borne, time out of
mind, the title of Via Dolorosa ; and tradition has
fixed the spots where the Saviour rested, bearing His
cross to Calvary. But of the mountain, rising imme-
diately in front of us, a few grey olive-trees speck-
ling the yellow side here and there, there can be no
question. That is the Mount of Olives. Bethany lies
beyond it. The most sacred eyes that ever looked
on this world, have gazed on those ridges ; it was
there He used to walk and teach. With shame and
humility one looks towards the spot where that in-
expressible Love and Benevolence lived and breathed ;
where the great yearning heart of the Saviour inter-
ceded for all our race ; and whence the bigots and
traitors of His day led Him away to kill Him.^

Religion was much in Thackeray's thoughts, though
there is little mention of it in his books.

' ' O awful name of God ! Light unbearable ! Mystery
unfathomable! Vastness immeasurable!" he exclaimed

^ From Cornhill to Grand Cairo, chap. xiii.

154 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-
in a white heat of indignation, when writing of
''Madame Sand and the New Apocalypse"; and he
was as angry with Mrs. Trollope, who in her novel,
" The Vicar of Wrexhill," fulminated against those
who interpreted the Scriptures in other ways than she.

Mrs. Trollope . . . who sees so keenly the follies
of the other party — how much vanity there is in Bible
Meetings — how much sin even at Missionary Societies
—how much cant and hypocrisy there is among those
who desecrate the awful name of God by mixing it up
with their mean private interests and petty projects —
Mrs. Trollope cannot see that there is any hypocrisy
or bigotry on her part. She, who designates the rival
party as false, and wicked, and vain, tracing all their
actions to the basest motives, declaring their worship
of God to be only one general hypocrisy, their con-
duct at home one fearful scene of crime, is blind to
the faults on her own side. Always bitter against
the Pharisees, she does as the Pharisees do. It is
vanity, very likely, which leads these people to use
God's name so often, and to devote all to perdition
who do not coincide with their peculiar notions. Is
Mrs. Trollope less vain than they are when she de-
clares, and merely declares^ her own to be the real
creed, and stigmatises its rival so fiercely? Is Mrs.
Trollope serving God, in making abusive and licen-
tious pictures of those who serve Him in a different
way? Once, as Mrs. Trollope has read — it was a
long time ago ! — there was a woman taken in sin ;
people brought her before a great Teacher of Truth,
who lived in those days. "Shall we not kill her?"
said they; "the law commands that all adultresses
shall be killed."

We can fancy a Mrs. Trollope in the crowd, shout-
ing, " Oh, the wretch ! Oh, the abominable harlot !
Kill her, by all means — stoning is really too good for
her!" But what did the Divine Teacher say? He
was quite as anxious to prevent the crime as any Mrs.
Trollope of them all ; but He did not make any

1846] JEWS AND ROMAN CATHOLICS 155

allusion to it. He did not describe the manner in
which the poor creature was caught, He made no
speech to detail the indecencies which she had com-
mitted, or to raise the fury of the mob against her.
He said, "Let the man who is without sin himself
throw the first stone ! " Whereupon the Pharisees
and Mrs. Trollopes slunk away, for they knew they
were no better than she. There was as great a sin in
His eyes as that of the poor erring woman, — it was
the sin of pride. ^

Though Thackeray attacked Mrs. Trollope on the
score of narrow-mindedness, it must be admitted that
he was not always very tolerant of those whose religious
beliefs differed from his own. His dislike of the Jews,
of whom he always wrote with contempt, was based
upon his objection to the race rather than to their
religion, of which latter, indeed, he never spoke ; but
the Roman Catholics he despised, not as individuals,
but because of their religion, and he wrote of that with
great harshness.

I once went into a church at Rome at the request
of a Catholic friend, who declared the interior to be
so beautiful and glorious, that he thought (he said) it
must be like Heaven itself. I found walls hung with
cheap strips of pink and white calico, altars covered
with artificial flowers, a number of wax candles, and
plenty of gilt paper ornaments. The place seemed to
me like a shabby theatre ; and here was my friend on
his knees at my side, plunged in a rapture of wonder
and devotion. I could get no better impression out
of this most famous Church in the world. The

^ Our Batch of Novels for Deceynber i8jy (Fraser's Magazine, January
1838). Shortly after Thackeray had written this article he was invited
to a dinner-party at which Mrs. Trollope would be present. " Oh, by
Jove! I can't come," he exclaimed. "I've just cut up her ' Vicar of
Wrexhill' in a review. I think she tells lies." (Richard Bedingfield :
Recollections ef Thackeray. )

156 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1837-

deceits are too open and flagrant : the inconsistencies
and contrivances too monstrous. It is hard even to
sympathise with persons who receive them as genuine ;
and though (as I know and saw in the case of my
friend at Rome) the believer's life may be passed in
the purest exercise of faith and charity, it is difficult
even to give him credit for honesty, so barefaced
seem to be the impostures which he professes to
believe and reverence. It costs one no small effort
even to admit the possibility of a Catholic's credulity :
to share in his rapture and devotion is still further
out of your power ; and I could get from this church
no other emotion but those of shame and pain ! ^

In the columns of Punch he appeared in active opposi-
tion to the "Papal Aggression," though according to
Sir Francis Burnand, he had little knowledge of the
subject, and subsequently expressed his regret that he
had taken part in the attack.

When Thackeray was at Brighton he went to hear
a sermon by the Rev. Joseph Sortain, the incumbent of
the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, upon which he
commented :

It was about the origin of nations he spoke, one of
those big themes on which a man can talk eternally
and with a never ending outpouring of words ; and he
talked magnificently, about the Arabs for the most
part, and tried to prove that because the Arabs
acknowledged their descent from Ishmael or Esau,
therefore the Old Testament History was true. But
the Arabs may have had Esau for a father, and yet
the bears may not have eaten up the little children for
quizzing Elisha's bald head.-

Thackeray, indeed, had some doubts as to the in-
fallibility of the Bible, and when Richard Bedingfield

^ From Cornhill to Grand Cairo, chap. xiii.

^ A Collection of Letters of W. M. Thackeray, p. 35.

1846] RELIGION 157

mentioned Thomas Cooper's lecture on Christ, "Oh,
Cooper, the Chartist! "he rejoined. "I suppose he
only makes Christ a reformer ! / dofi't knoiv what to
think ! " But such expressions were rare with him, and
it seems certain that if he sometimes felt he could not
accept the letter of the Bible, he never ceased to believe
in its spirit. "One Sunday evening in December,"
Dr. John Brown has recorded, "Thackeray was walk-
ing with two friends along the Dean Road, to the west
of Edinburgh — one of the noblest outlets to any city.
It was a lovely evening ; such a sunset as one never
forgets ; a rich dark bar of cloud hovered over the sky,
going down behind the Highland hills, lying bathed
in amethystine bloom; between this cloud and the hills
there was a narrow strip of the pure ether of a tender
cowslip colour, lucid, and as if it were the very body of
heaven in its clearness ; every object standing out as
if etched upon the sky. The north-west end of the
Corstorphine Hill, with its trees and rocks, lay in the
heart of this pure radiance, and there a wooden crane,
used in the granary below, was so placed as to assume
the figure of a cross ; there it was, unmistakably lifted
up against the crystalline sky. All three gazed at it
silently. As they gazed, Thackeray gave utterance in a
tremulous, gentle, and rapid voice, to what all were
feeling, in the word * Calvary ! ' The friends walked
on in silence, and then turned to other things. All
that evening he was very gentle and serious, speaking
as he seldom did, of divine things — of death, of sin,
of eternity, of salvation, expressing his simple faith in
God and in his Saviour."^

^ Thackeray (North British Review, February 1864).

158 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846

Like all true men, he had no fear of death, and
again and again he expressed his conviction that
sympathy was needed not for those who had gone
before but for those who remained.

Where can a good and pious man be better than in
the presence of God? away from ill, and temptation,
and care, and secure of reward [he said in a letter of
condolence written to Miss Charlotte Low in 1849].
What a comfort it is to think that he, who was so good
and faithful here, must be called away to live among
the good and just for ever ! There never seems to me
any cause for grief at the thought of a good man
dying, beyond the sorrow for those who survive him,
and trusting in God's mercy and wisdom, infinite here
and everywhere, await the day when they too shall
be called away.^

^ Canon Irvine : A Study for Colonel Neivcome (Nineteenth Century,
October 1893).

CHAPTER X
ON PICTURES AND BOOKS

The savagery of criticism in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century
— Thackeray's papers on art — his outspokenness — and the anger of
the painters — his opinions of "Christian" or "Catholic" art — and
of the historical school of painting — his appreciation of "The Fight-
ing T^m^raire " — and of George Cruikshank — miscellaneous criticism
of books — on Byron — on the annuals — his attack on Ainsworth —
his explanation — on the Newgate school of fiction — "Catherine" —
its purpose — and the author's criticism of his book — his savage
attacks on Bulwer-Lytton — and his subsequent cry of "Peccavi" —
"Mr. Yellowplush's Ajew" — his appreciation of some contemporary
writers — Scott and Dumas his favourite novelists — his opinions of
Swift, Sterne, Addison, Steele, Goldsmith, Prior and Gay — of Smol-
lett and Fielding — his love for kindly writers — and happy endings.

IN the late thirties and forties of the last
century, when Thackeray was a reviewer, the
most noticeable feature of contemporary criti-
cism was savagery. Party spirit ran high, and
a Tory had as little chance of obtaining justice at the
hands of the pundits of the Edinburgh Review as a
Whig of receiving commendation from the writers of
the Quarterly RevieWy Black-wood" s or Eraser's Maga-
zine. "You have called Hazlitt pimpled, affected,
ignorant, a Cockney scribbler, etc.," Maginn wrote to
William Blackwood in 1823; "but what is that to
what he has said to the most brilliant men of the
age? Hook-nosed Wellington, vulture-beaked Southey,

159

i6o WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

hanging-browed Croker, down-looking Jack Murray,
and Mudford fat as fleecy hosiery." If HazHtt led the
way, Macaulay and Croker, Lockhart and Maginn
were not far behind, and, at a distance, Thackeray
followed in their footsteps. A Whig on the staff of
a Tory magazine, Thackeray was not asked to exercise
his satirical powers on political personages ; and to
him fell the more congenial task of reviewing art and
letters : in which field he restrained himself not at all,
and when he disliked a book or a picture left nothing
of his disapproval to the imagination of his readers.

Thackeray's papers on art were certainly as out-
spoken as they were amusing, and his annual humor-
istical article on the exhibitions so infuriated the
painters that Frank Stone told Edward FitzGerald that
"Thackeray would get himself horsewhipped one day
by one of the infuriated Apelleses." In art as in
literature Thackeray sought the natural, and when he
could find only affectation, he wielded the critical flail
with no little vigour. The " Christian " or ** Catholic"
art seemed to him humbug, and he attacked it
accordingly.

Here, for instance, is Chevalier Ziegler's picture
of "St. Luke painting the Virgin." St. Luke has
a monk's dress on, embroidered, however, smartly
round the sleeves. The Virgin sits in an immense
yellow-ochre halo, with her son in her arms. She
looks preternaturally solemn ; as does St. Luke, who
is eyeing his paint-brush with an intense, ominous,
mystical look. They call this Catholic art. There
is nothing, my dear friend, more easy in life. First
take your colours, and rub them down clear — bright
carmine, bright yellow, bright sienna, bright ultra-
marine, bright green. Make your costumes as much

WILLIAM .MAKKI'LAi K IlIACKEKAV
From an jinfuihlished ivatei'-colouT di'aiving by D. Dighion
Reproduced by permission of Major William H. Lambert

HAYDON AND TURNER i6i

as possible like the costumes of the early part of the
fifteenth century. Paint them in with the above
colours, and if on a gold ground, the more ''Catholic"
your art is. Dress your Apostles like priests before
the altar ; and remember to have a good commodity
of crosiers, censers, and other such gimcracks, as
you may see in the Catholic chapels, in Sutton
Street, or elsewhere. Deal in Virgins, and dress
them like a burgomaster's wife by Cranach or Van
Eyck. Give them all long twisted tails to their
gowns, and proper angular draperies. Place all
their heads on one side, with the eyes shut and the
proper solemn simper. At the back of the head,
draw, and gild with gold-leaf, a halo, or glory, of
the exact shape of a cart-wheel : and you have the
thing done. It is Catholic art tout crache ; as Louis
Philippe says.

He had little affection for the historical school, and
made cruel fun of Haydon's immense canvases, of
one of which he wrote :

Let us hope somebody will buy. Who, I cannot
tell ; it will not do for a chapel ; it is too big for a
house : I have it — it might answer to hang up over
a caravan at a fair, if a travelling orrery were ex-
hibited within.^

Thackeray had his likes and dislikes like any other
critic, but when he saw fine work he rarely failed to
recognise it. The author of the biography of Turner
has stated that " Thackeray had more than a finger in
lashing the dotage of this great man's genius," but,
though the critic did not think highly of ''Cicero at
his Villa " and other works of the painter, and did not
know whether "The Slave-Trader" was sublime or
ridiculous, his splendid tribute to " The Fighting

^ Picture Gossip i^Fraser's Magazine, June, 1845.)
I.— M

i62 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Temeraire " made amends for his want of appreciation
of the other pieces.

I must request you to turn your attention to a
noble river piece by J. W. M. Turner, Esq., R.A.,
" The Fighting Temeraire " — as grand a painting as
ever figured on the walls of any academy, or came
from the easel of any painter. The old Temeraire
is dragged to her last home by a little, spiteful,
diabolical steamer. A mighty red sun, amidst a
host of flaring clouds, sinks to rest on one side of
the picture, and illumines a river that seems inter-
minable, and a countless navy that fades away into
such a wonderful distance as never was painted
before. The little demon of a steamer is belching
out a volume (why do I say a volume? not a hundred
volumes could express it) of foul, lurid, red-hot
malignant smoke, paddling furiously and lashing
up the water about it ; while behind it (a cold grey
moon looking down on it), slow, sad, and majestic,
follows the brave old ship, with death, as it were,
written on her. . . . It is absurd, you will say (and
with a great deal of reason) for Titmarsh, or any
other Briton, to grow so politically enthusiastic about
a four-foot canvas, representing a ship, a steamer,
a river, and a sunset. But herein surely lies the
power of the great artist. He makes you see and
think of a good deal more than the objects before
you ; he knows how to soothe or intoxicate, to fire or to
depress, by a few notes, or forms, or colours, of which
we cannot trace the effects to the source, but only ac-
acknowledge the power. I recollect some years ago, at
the theatre at Weimar, hearing Beethoven's ''Battle
of Vittoria," in which, amidst a storm of glorious
music, the air of "God save the King" was intro-
duced. The very instant it began, every English-
man in the house was bolt upright, and so stood
reverently until the air was played out. Why so ?
From some such thrill of excitement as makes us
glow and rejoice over Mr. Turner and his "Fighting
Temeraire," which I am sure, when the art of trans-

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 163

lating colours into music or poetry shall be discovered,
will be found to be a magnificent natural ode or piece
of music. ^

Thackeray's papers on art are too well known for
it to be desirable here, where the object is to de-
scribe rather than to criticise them, to embark upon
a lengthy discussion, and these brief remarks may
conclude with the well-deserved panegyric on one of
the greatest of the humoristical artists, upon whose
work he was well qualified to speak.

The reader will perhaps wonder at the high-flown
tone in which we speak of the services and merits of
an individual, whom he considers a humble scraper
on steel, that is wonderfully popular already. But
none of us remember all the benefits we owe him ;
they have come one by one, one driving out the
memory of the other ; it is only when we come to
examine them altogether as the writer has done, who
has a pile of books on the table before him — a heap
of personal kindnesses from George Cruikshank
(not presents, if you please, for we bought, borrowed,
or stole every one of them), that we feel what we owe
him. Look at one of Mr. Cruikshank's works, and
we pronounce him an excellent humourist. Look at
all, his reputation is increased by a kind of geometri-
cal progression ; as a whole diamond is a hundred
times more valuable than the hundred splinters into
which it might be broken would be. A fine rough
English diamond is this about which we have been
writing.^

Thackeray in these early days of his literary career
was, as it has been shown, prepared to write for any-
body or on anything, and a glance at the subjects with

' A Second Lecture on the Fine Arts (Fraser's Magazine, June 1839).
"^ An Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank ( Westminster Review^
June 1840).

i64 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY f

which he dealt recalls the picture he subsequently
presented of his young friend, Pendennis.

The courage of young critics is prodigious : they
clamber up to the judgment-seat, and, with scarce a
hesitation, give their opinion upon works the most
intricate or profound. Had Macaulay's History or
Herschell's Astronomy been put before Pen at this
period, he would have looked through the volumes,
meditated his opinion over a cigar, and signified his
august approval of either author, as if the critic had
been their born superior, and indulgent master and
patron. By the help of the " Biographic Univer-
selle " or the British Museum, he would be able to
take a rapid resume of a historical period, and allude
to names, dates, and facts, in such a masterly, easy
way, as to astonish his mamma at home, who won-
dered where her boy could have acquired such a
prodigious store of reading, and himself, too, when
he came to read over his articles two or three months
after they had been composed, and when he had
forgotten the subject and the books which he had
consulted. At that period of his life, Mr. Pen owns
that he would not have hesitated, at twenty-four hours'
notice, to pass an opinion upon the greatest scholars,
or to give a judgment upon the Encyclopasdia.^

Thackeray was probably not called upon to review
an encyclopsedia, but he did not hesitate to pronounce
judgment upon Carlyle's '' French Revolution," Count
Valerian Krasinski's "History of the Reformation in
Poland," Tyler's "Life of Henry V," Eraser's "Jour-
ney from Constantinople to Teheran," and scores of
other works upon which he was certainly not able to
speak with authority. There were, however, some
subjects more congenial to him, and the expression of
his opinions on these are of assistance in the task of

* Pendennis^ chap, xxxvi.

THE ANNUALS 165

presenting his character. We see him from the first
tilting with all his powers against affectation, against
snobbery and against the degradation of the literary
art. With what fire did he attack Byron on the first of
these counts.

Give me a fresh, dewy, healthy rose out of Somer-
setshire; not one of those superb, tawdry, unwhole-
some exotics, which are only good to make poems
about. Lord Byron wrote more cant of this sort than
any poet I know of. Think of ''the peasant girls
with dark blue eyes" of the Rhine — the brown-faced,
flat-nosed, thick-lipped, dirty wenches ! Think of
" filling high a cup of Samian wine " ; small beer is
nectar compared to it, and Byron himself always
drank gin. That man 7iever wrote from his heart.
He got up rapture and enthusiasm with an eye to the
public; . . . Our native bard! Mon dieii! He
Shakespeare's, Milton's, Keats', Scott's native bard !
Well, woe be to the man who denies the public gods!^

How angry he was with the artists and authors who
contributed to the " Keepsake " and other trashy
annuals, and how vigorously he attacked them again
and again in Eraser's Magazine and the Times!

Miss Landon, Miss Mitford, or my Lady Blessing-
ton, writes a song upon the opposite page [to the
plate], about water lily, chilly, stilly, shivering be-
side a streamlet, plighted, blighted, love-benighted,
falsehood sharper than a gimlet, lost affection, recol-
lection, cut connexion, tears in torrents, true love-
token, spoken, broken, sighing, dying, girl of
Florence, and so on. The poetry is quite worthy of
the picture, and a little sham sentiment is employed
to illustrate a little sham art. ... It cannot be
supposed that Miss Landon, a woman of genius, —
Miss Mitford, a lady of exquisite wit and taste —

^ From Cornhill to Grand Cairo, chap. v.

i66 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

should, of their own accord, sit down to indite namby-
pamby verses about silly, half-decent pictures ; or
that Jenkins, Parris, Meadows, and Co., are not
fatigued by this time with the paltry labour assigned
to them. . . . Who sets them to this wretched
work? — to paint these eternal fancy portraits, of ladies
in voluptuous attitudes and various stages of disha-
bille, to awaken the dormant sensibilities of misses in
their teens, or tickle the worn-out palettes of rakes
and roues. What a noble occupation for a poet !
what a delicate task for an artist ! ^

Even more likely than these ephemeral productions
to bring letters into contempt was a manifesto issued by
Ainsworth, when that novelist took over the Monthly
Magazine from Colburn ; and this in a vigorous pro-
test, unknown to the present generation, Thackeray
held up to ridicule.

Mr. Ainsworth, '* on whom the Editorship of the
New Monthly Magazine has devolved," parades a list
of contributors to that brilliant periodical, and says
he has secured the aid of several writers *' eminent not
only for talent^ but for high rank."

Are they of high rank as authors, or in the Red
Book? Mr. Ainsworth can't mean that the readers of
his Magazine care for an author because he happens
to be a lord — a flunkey might — but not a gentleman
who has any more brains than a fool. A literary
gentleman who respects his calling doesn't surely
mean to propitiate the public by saying, " I am going
to write for you, and — and Lord Fitzdiddle is going
to write too."

Hang it, man, let him write — write and be — suc-
cessful, or write and be — unsuccessful, according to
his merits. But don't let us talk about high rank in
the republic of letters — let us keep that place clear.
Publishers have sought for lordlings, we know, and

^ A Word on the Annuals (Fraser's Magazine, December 1837).

WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH 167

got them to put their unlucky names to works which
they never wrote ; but don't let men of letters demean
themselves in this way.

No, William Harrison, trust to your own powers
and genius — trust to the harrowing influence of the
" Revelations of London " — trust to the contributors
''who have shed a lustre over the Magazine," the
enterprising and erudite Whatdyecallem ; Thingamy
"whose domestic tales have found an echo in every
bosom," and the rest. But don't let us hear any more
of high rank as a recommendation.^

No sooner had these lines gone to the printer than
Thackeray felt uncomfortable at the thought of attacking
a man he knew from behind the safe shield of anony-
mity, and he proceeded to avow the authorship.

Of course I'll come to dinner on Sunday, and we
are just as good friends as ever [he wrote to Ains-
worth, on June 30, 1845]. Wasn't it much better to
complain and explain? I think so — and the imperial
house of Titmarsh is now satisfied. There's one thing
I regret very much, and must be told to you now in
making a clean breast of it — is a certain paragraph
in the next Punchy relating to a certain advertisement
about contributors, *' not only of talent, hiU of rank.^''
This moved my wrath ; and has been hardly handled
— this was before our meeting and explanation — I
always must think it a very objectionable advertise-
ment — but shouldn't have lifted my hand to smite my
friend, had explanation come earlier, so that no^ you
must be called upon to play the part of forgiver, in
which I'm sure you will shine. . . . Your terms
are prodigiously good, and if I can see the material
for a funny story you shall have it.^

^ Immense Opportunity {Punch, July 5, 1845). This paper has only
been reprinted in Macmillan's edition of Thackeray's Works (Vol. XVII,
" Travels in London, etc.").

^ M. H. Spielmann : Thackeray's Hitherto Unpublished Contributions
to " Punch" p. 133.

i68 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Thackeray, however, did not find material for a "funny
story," and he never wrote again for the New Monthly
Magazine^ but it is pleasant to relate that Ainsworth
accepted the olive branch, and that henceforth the
relations between them were cordial.

To return to Thackeray as a reader and critic of
books. Something has already been said of his
attitude towards the Newgate school of fiction, and he
was never weary of protesting against it.

Vice is never to be mistaken for virtue in Fielding's
honest downright books ; it goes by its name, and
invariably gets its punishment. See the consequences
of honesty ! Many a squeamish lady of our time
would throw down one of these romances with horror,
but would go through every page of Mr. Ainsworth's
"Jack Sheppard " with perfect comfort to herself.
Ainsworth dared not paint his hero as the scoundrel
he knew him to be ; he must keep his brutalities in
the background, else the public morals will be out-
raged, and so he produces a book quite absurd and
unreal, and infinitely more immoral than anything
Fielding ever wrote. "Jack Sheppard" is immoral
actually because it is decorous. The Spartans, who
used to show drunken slaves to their children, took
care, no doubt, that the slave should be really and
truly drunk. Sham drunkenness which never passed
the limits of propriety, but only went so far as to be
amusing, would be rather an object to incite youth
to intoxication than to deter him from it, and some
late novels have always struck us in the same light.^

This clearly expressed the view he held on the subject,
and " Catherine," though presented as a story, was, in
fact, an attempt to counteract the influence of those
books that made heroes of highwaymen and murderers,

^ Review of Fielding's Works (the Times, September 2, 1840).

THE NEWGATE SCHOOL OF FICTION 169

and created a false sympathy for the vicious and
criminal.

We ought, perhaps, to make some apologies to
the public for introducing them to characters that
are so utterly worthless ; as we confess all our heroes,
with the exception of Mr. Bullock, to be [Thackeray
wrote at the end of chapter i]. In this we have
consulted nature and history, rather than the pre-
vailing taste and the general manner of authors.
The amusing novel of "Ernest Maltravers," for
instance, opens with a seduction ; but then it is per-
formed by people of the strictest virtue on both sides;
and there is so much religion and philosophy in the
heart of the seducer, so much tender innocence in
the soul of the seduced, that — bless the little dears ! —
their very peccadilloes make one interested in them ;
and their naughtiness becomes quite sacred, so
deliciously is it described. Now, if we are to be
interested by rascally actions, let us have them with
plain faces, and let them be performed, not by
virtuous philosophers, but by rascals. Another
clever class of novelists adopt the contrary system,
and create interest by making their rascals perform
virtuous actions. Against these popular plans we
here solemnly appeal. We say, let your rogues in
novels act like rogues, and your honest men like
honest men ; don't let us have any juggling and
thimblerigging with virtue and vice, so that, at the
end of three volumes, the bewildered reader shall
not know which is which ; don't let us find ourselves
kindling at the generous qualities of thieves, and
sympathising at the rascalities of noble hearts. For
our own part, we know what the public likes, and
have chosen rogues for our characters, and have
taken a story from the "Newgate Calendar," which
we hope to follow out to edification. Among the
rogues, at least, we will have nothing that shall be
mistaken for virtues. And if the British public (after
calling for three or four editions) shall give up, not
only our rascals, but the rascals of all other authors,

I70 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

we shall be content — we shall apply to government
for a pension, and think that our duty is done.

A little further on, Thackeray again stopped the
narrative to make a further protest.

The public will hear of nothing but rogues ; and
the only way in which poor authors, who must live,
can act honestly by the public and themselves, is to
paint such thieves as they are ; not dandy, poetical,
rose-water thieves, but real downright scoundrels,
leading scoundrelly lives, drunken, profligate, dis-
solute, low, as scoundrels will be. They don't quote
Plato, like Eugene Aram ; or live like gentlemen,
and sing the pleasantest ballads in the world, like
jolly Dick Turpin ; or prate eternally about to koXov,
like that precious canting Maltravers, whom we all
of us have read about and pitied ; or die whitewashed
saints, like poor Biss Dadsy in " Oliver Twist." No,
my dear madam, you and your daughters have no
right to admire and sympathise with any such
persons, fictitious or real : you ought to be made
cordially to detest, scorn, loathe, abhor, and abom-
inate all people of this kidney. Men of genius, like
those whose works we have above alluded to, have
no business to make these characters interesting or
agreeable ; to be feeding your morbid fancies, or
indulging their own, with such monstrous food. For
our parts, young ladies, we beg you to bottle up your
tears, and not waste a single drop of them on any of
the heroes or heroines in this history : they are all
rascals, every soul of them, and behave "as sich."
Keep your sympathy for those who deserve it ; don't
carry it, for preference, to the Old Bailey, and grow
maudlin over the company assembled there.^

In this satire, which is founded upon an incident
narrated in the " Newgate Calendar," Thackeray
mitigated as little as possible of the horrors, with the

^ Catherine, chap. ii.

LAMPOONS BULWER LYTTON 171

unfortunate result that readers, forgetful or ignorant
of the purpose which inspired it, were absorbed and
fascinated by the realistic narrative, and critics of
little discernment wrote of it as one of the dullest,
most vulgar, and immoral works extant. No doubt
those who were disgusted by *' Catherine," later
thought Thackeray an admirer of Barry Lyndon,
Esq., and regarded Henry Fielding as a staunch
sympathiser with the unfortunate Mr. Jonathan Wild.
Irony is a dangerous weapon, and Thackeray realised
that with " Catherine " he had not achieved his purpose.
Thackeray's dislike of Lytton as the author of
''Eugene Aram" was much aggravated by that
author's affectations, and very bitterly did he attack
him in Eraser's Magazine. When in after days
Thackeray remarked, "I suppose we all begin by
being too savage : I know one 'mho didy" it is probable
that he was thinking of this and other attacks on
Lytton, which, indeed, were so violent as to suggest
personal animus, though, as a matter of fact, the
objections he entertained against this author were
purely abstract.

I wish to egsplain what I meant last night with
regard to a certain antipathy to a certain great
author [he wrote to Lady Blessington in 1848]. I
have no sort of personal dislike (not that it matters
whether I have or not) to Sir E. L. B. L., on the
contrary the only time I met him, at the immortal
Ainsworth's years ago, I thought him very pleasant,
and I know from his conduct to my dear little
Blanchard that he can be a most generous and
delicate-minded friend. BUT there air sentiments
in his writings which always anger me, big words
which make me furious, and a premeditated fine

172 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

writing against which I can't help rebelling. . . .
My antipathy don't go any farther than this : and it
is accompanied by a great deal of admiration. I
felt ashamed of myself when I came home and
thought how needlessly I had spoken of this. What
does it matter one way or the other, and what cause
had I to select Sir H. Bulwer of all men in the world
for these odious confidences. It was very rude.
I am always making rude speeches and apologising
for them, like a Nuisance to Society. And now I
remember how Sir B. Lytton spoke in a very differ-
ent manner to a mutual friend about your very
humble servant.

Thackeray was somewhat troubled by these early
onslaughts on Lytton, and, when at the request of
the American publisher, Appleton, he wrote a preface
to an edition of his minor works, he took the oppor-
tunity to express his regret.

There is an opportunity of being satiric or senti-
mental. The careless papers written at an early
period, and never seen since the printer's boy carried
them away, are brought back and laid at the father's
door ; and he cannot, if he would, disown his own
children. Why were some of the little brats brought
out of their obscurity? I own to a feeling of any-
thing but pleasure in reviewing some of these mis-
shapen juvenile creatures, which the publisher
has disinterred and resuscitated. There are two
performances especially (among the critical and
biographical works of the erudite Mr. Yellowplush)
which I am sorry to see reproduced, and I ask
pardon of the author of ''The Caxtons " for a
lampoon, which I know he himself has forgiven,
and which I wish I could recall. I had never seen
that eminent writer but once in public when this
satire was penned, and wonder at the recklessness of
the young man who could fancy such personality was

APOLOGIES TO LYTTON 173

harmless jocularity, and never calculated that it
might give pain.^

It was some years later that Thackeray told a friend
of his and Lytton, that he would have given worlds to
have burnt those lampoons, and that he much wished
to see the latter and express his contrition. Thackeray
gave his friend to understand that he desired his
feeling of regret and his admiration for the *' Caxton "
series of novels to be communicated to the man he
had wantonly attacked ; and soon after he wrote to
Lord Lytton.

Looking over some American reprints of my books,
I find one containing a preface written by me when
I was in New York, in which are the following
words: [here is copied the passage printed above].
I don't know whether you were ever made aware of
this cry of " Peccavi " : but, with the book in which
it appears just fresh before me, I think it fair to
write a line to acquaint you with the existence of
such an apology ; and to assure you of the author's
repentance for the past, and the present goodwill.^

Bulwer Lytton's reputation, founded mainly upon his
later novels, cannot be injured by the reviving of any
criticism directed against the early work, and therefore
it is permissible to reprint here the delightful burlesque
speech which Thackeray put into his mouth, in which
he endeavours to dissuade Yellowplush from entering
the literary calling.

'* Yellowplush," says he, seizing my hand, ''you
are right. Quit not your present occupation ; black

^ Preface to Mr. Brown's Letters to a Yon7tg Man about Tow7i, New
York, 1853.

^ Life of Lord Lytton, Vol. II, p. 275.

174 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

boots, clean knives, wear plush, all your life, but
don't turn literary man. Look at me. I am the first
novelist in Europe. I have ranged with eagle wing
over the wide regions of literature, and perched on
every eminence in its turn. I have gazed with eagle
eye on the sun of philosophy, and fathomed the
mysterious depths of the human mind. All languages
are familiar to me, all thoughts are known to me, all
men understood by me. I have gathered wisdom
from the honeyed lips of Plato, as we wandered in
the gardens of the Academes — wisdom, too, from the
mouth of Job Johnson, as we smoked our 'backy in
Seven Dials. Such must be the studies, and such is
the mission, in this world, of the Poet-Philosopher.
But the knowledge is only emptiness ; the initiation
is but misery ; the initiated, a man shunned and
banned by his fellows. O," said Bullwig, clasping
his hands, and throwing his fine i's up to the chande-
lier, "the curse of Pwometheus descends upon his
wace. Wath and punishment pursue them from
genewation to genewation ! Wo to Genius, the
Heaven-sealer, the fire-stealer ! Wo, and thrice
bitter desolation ! Earth is the wock on which Zeus,
wemorseless, stwetches his withing victim — men, the
vultures that feed and fatten on him. Ai, Ai ! it is
agony eternal — gwoaning and solitawy despair ! And
you, Yellowplush, would penetwate these mystewies;
you would waise the awful veil, and stand in the
Twemendous Pwesence. Beware as you value your
peace, beware ! Withdraw, wash Neophyte ! for
Heaven's sake — O, for Heaven's sake ! " — here he
looked round with agony — "give me a glass of
bwandy-and-water for this clawet is beginning to
disagwee with me."i

Thackeray might belabour Ainsworth, Madame Sand,
Lytton, and the rest honestly believing "Spiridion,"
" Eugene Aram", "Jack Sheppard" and similar works
were harmful ; but he was never sparing of praise for

^ Mr. Yellowplush' s Aje-w.

SCOTT AND DUMAS 175

his contemporaries when he thought it deserved. He
wrote enthusiastically of Cruikshank and Leech, who
might, in some measure, be regarded as his rivals,
and always spoke with great admiration of Doyle ;
and, both in his writings and letters, expressed, not
necessarily unbounded, but certainly not too strictly
critical, admiration of Macaulay and Washington
Irving, of Tom Hood (whose "Song of the Shirt" he
declared the finest lyric ever written), of Charles Lever
and Charlotte Bronte ; he admired Disraeli's splendid
talents, and praised even Lytton for the good example
he set by being ** thoroughly literate." Of Scott he
made frequent mention, and thought "The Bride of
Lammermoor " his best novel, and loved " Ivanhoe."

As for Rebecca, now her head is laid upon Ivan-
hoe's heart : I shall not ask to hear what she is
whispering, or describe further that scene of meeting,
though I declare I am quite affected when I think
of it. Indeed I have thought of it any time these
five-and-twenty years — ever since, as a boy at school,
I commenced the noble study of novels — ever since
the day when, lying on sunny slopes of half-holidays,
the fair chivalrous figures and beautiful shapes of
knights and ladies were visible to me — ever since
I grew to love Rebecca, that sweetest creature of the
poet's fancy, and longed to see her righted.^

Next to Scott, if not, indeed, before him, in the list
of Thackeray's heroes came Dumas, whom, to his
exceeding delight, he had met at the house of Gudin
the painter. " Dumas is charming. He is better than
Walter Scott," he said enthusiastically to John Esten
Cooke. "I came near writing a book on the same

^ Rebecca and Roivena, chap. vii.

176 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

subject, ' Les Trois Mousquetaires,' and taking Mon-
sieur D'Artagnan for my hero. D'Artagnan was a real
character of the age of Louis XIV, and wrote his own
'Memoires.' I remember picking up a dingy copy
of them on an old bookstall in London, price sixpence,
and intended to make something of it. But Dumas
got ahead of me — he snaps up everything. He is
wonderful ! "

Thackeray was always happy when he could pay a
compliment in his books to his friends, and never lost
an opportunity to do so.

The young Aja came for a pair of shoes, and his
contortions were so delightful as he tried them, that
I remained with great pleasure, wishing for Leech
to be at hand to sketch his lordship and his fat
mamma, who sat on the counter.^

There should have been a poet in our company to
describe that charming little bay of Glaucus, into
which we entered on the 26th of September in the
first steamboat that ever disturbed its beautiful
waters. You can't put down in prose that delight-
ful episode of natural poetry ; it ought to be done in
a symphony, full of sweet melodies and swelling
harmonies ; or sung in a strain of clear crystal
iambics, such as Milnes knows how to write.^

Allusion has already been made to Thackeray's love
for the humorous writers of the eighteenth century,
which sprang up in him even when he was at the
Charterhouse ; and though in his lectures on them, as
he was careful to state, it was of the men and their
lives rather than of their books that he treated, yet here
and there were critical remarks worthy of notice.
Swift, he admitted reluctantly, for he hated the man,

J Fro7n Cornhill to Grand Cairo, chap. vii. - Ibid., chap. x.

LAURENCE STERNE 177

possessed a surprising humour, noble, just, and
honest satire, and the power of perfect imagery : "the
greatest wit of all times," "an immense genius" ; but
it is obvious that of all the writings of this author he
preferred the "Journal to Stella," than which, he de-
clared, there was " nothing more manly, more tender,
more exquisitely touching." He could not refuse to
see Sterne's wit, humour, and pathos, but he dis-
liked his pose : " he used to blubber perpetually in
his study, and finding his tears infectious, and that
they brought him a great popularity, he exercised the
lucrative gift of weeping ; he utilised it, and cried
on every occasion." He was prejudiced against both
these writers, and in a letter to a correspondent who
had lent him some Sterne MSS., one reason may be
discovered :

I am sorry that reading the Brahmin's letters to
his Brahmine did not increase my respect for the
Reverend Laurence Sterne.

In his printed letters there is one (xcii.) addressed
to Lady P. full of love and despair for my lady, and

announcing that he had got a ticket for Miss 's

benefit that night, which he must use if deprived of
the superior delight of seeing Lady P. I looked in
the " Dramatic Register" (I think is the name of the
book) to find what lady took a benefit on a Tuesday,
and found the names of two, one at Covent Garden
and one at Drury Lane on the same Tuesday evening,
and no other Miss's benefit on a Tuesday during
the season. Miss Poyntz, I think, is one of the
names, but I'm five miles from the book as I write to
you, and forget the lady's name and the day.

However, on the day Sterne was writing to Lady

P. and going to Miss 's benefit he is dyinf^ in

his Journal to the Brahmine — can't eat, has the Doc-
tor, and is in a dreadful way. He wasn't dying but

178 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

lying, I'm afraid. God help him ; a falser and
wickeder man it's difficult to read of. Do you know
the accompanying pamphlet (my friend Mr. Cooper
gave me this copy, which he had previously sent to
the Reform Club, and has since given the Club
another copy)? There is more of Yorick's love-
making in these letters, with blasphemy to flavour
the compositions, and indications of a scornful un-
belief. Of course any man is welcome to believe as
he likes for me except a parson ; and I can't help
looking upon Swift and Sterne as a couple of traitors
and renegades (as one does upon Bonneval or poor
Bem the other day), with a scornful pity for them in
spite of all their genius and their greatness.

For Congreve, Wycherley, Farquhar, and their merry
and shameless Comic Muse with the libertine heroes
and the wanton heroines he had no liking. **A touch
of Steele's tenderness is worth all Congreve's finery ;
a flash of Swift's lightning, a beam of Addison's pure
sunshine, and his tawdry playhouse taper is invisible."
It was not as the author of "Cato," nor of the poem
celebrating the victor of Blenheim that Addison
attracted him, but as "a Tatler of small talk and a
Spectator of Mankind." "He came in that artificial age,
and began to speak with his noble, natural voice. He
came, the gentle satirist, who hit no unfair blow, the
kind judge who castigated only in smiling." Thack-
eray loved Steele, whom he declared the founder of senti-
mental writing in English, and the first author to pay a
manly homage to woman. Naturalness was a short cut
to the heart of the author of " Vanity Fair," and on
this ground he paid tribute to Steele, and to Goldsmith,
with his simple songs of love and beauty. He could
not too highly praise "The Deserted Village", "The

\UtL VuiUVL, ['aAa4x Vu ^crl^ WiUv ^yXiMH. Vt ^t** Stl

FACSIMILE OF THACKKRAY'S HANDWRITING

^ /rtA'f "/ « /(■/''<''- /<' /'. " '. C7//'Av, Scptcinlwy 21, iS=;i. From the original in the
liritish Miisiiiiii

THE EARLIER NOVELISTS 179

Vicar of Wakefield, " and the two famous plays. Besides
Goldsmith, his favourite poets seem to have been Prior
and Gay: ''sweet lyric singers," he styled them.
Prior, he regarded as the easiest, the richest, the most
charmingly humorous of English lyrical poets ; while
Gay charmed him by the force of simple melody and
artless ringing laughter. He singled out the six
pastorals called the "Shepherd's Week" and the bur-
lesque poem of ''Trivia," and remarked that "these
are to poetry what charming little Dresden figures
are to sculpture : graceful, minikin, fantastic, with a
certain beauty always accompanying them." Pope
he unhesitatingly ranked highest amongst the poets,
brightest among the English wits and humorists, and
the greatest literary artist of the eighteenth century.
Before Fielding and Smollett he bowed low, as a
subject before his sovereign. "Humphrey Clinker"
he thought the most amusing story written since the
goodly art of novel-writing began, and he pronounced
"Peregrine Pickle" "excellent for its liveliness and
spirit, and wonderful for its atrocious vulgarity." He
preferred both these writers to Richardson, though he
admitted that " Clarissa" had one of the best-managed
surprises he had read ; but his favourite author was,
of course. Fielding, who may be looked upon as
the literary godfather of his famous successor. He
naturally does not think "Tom Jones" a virtuous
character, and he protests against the author's evident
liking and admiration for his hero, but, he says,

As a picture of manners, the novel of " Tom
Jones" is indeed exquisite: as a work of construc-
tion quite a wonder : the by-play of wisdom ; the

i8o WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

power of observation ; the multiplied felicitous turns
and thoughts ; the varied character of the great
Comic Epic, — keep the reader in a perpetual admira-
tion and curiosity.^ . . . The public of our day need
scarcely be warned that if they are to pass an hour
with Fielding they will find him continually in such
low company ; those, therefore, who are excessively
squeamish and genteel will scornfully keep away
from him ; those who have a mind to forgive a little
coarseness, for the sake of one of the honestest,
manliest, kindest companions in the world, cannot,
as we fancy, find a better than Fielding, or get so
much true wit and shrewdness from any other writer
of our language.^

It cannot be contended that Thackeray was a great
critic. Indeed there is no doubt that, as a rule, he
preferred second-rate books of the first-class to the
greatest. For instance, while as a matter of course he
admitted that Milton was a great poet, he added that
'' he was such a bore that no one could read him."
Whatever one may think of the discernment of a man
who says that, it is impossible to doubt his honesty.
He was often led away by the character of the author
whose works he was criticising. Because of this he
disapproved of Swift and Sterne, and rather grudgingly
admitted their qualities ; but he greatly praised Pope,
whom he loved because of his infirmity, and because
of the love the poet bore his mother. His judgments
came from the heart rather than the intellect, and it was
fortunate when these coincided. "St. Charles," he
said to Edward FitzGerald, in a third-floor in Charlotte
Street, putting one of Charles Lamb's letters to his

' English Humourists of ihc Eighlcenth Century.

■ Review of Fielding's Works in the Times, September 2, 1840.

DISLIKES SAD ENDINGS i8i

forehead, remembering his devotion to his afflicted
sister.

I hate Juvenal [he wrote to James Hannay, when
he was preparing his lectures on the Humourists].
I mean, I think him a truculent brute, and I like
Horace better than you do, and rate Churchill much
lower ; and as for Swift, you haven't made me alter
my opinion. I admire, or rather admit, his power as
much as you do ; but I don't admire that kind of
power so much as I did fifteen years ago, or twenty,
shall we say? Love is a higher intellectual exercise
than Hatred ; and when you get one or two more of
those young ones you write so pleasantly about,
you'll come over to the side of the kind wags, I
think, rather than the cruel ones.^

His own tastes led him to appreciate those books in
which a kindly view of life was taken. He would allow
to Flaubert no credit for *' Madame Bovary," which he
pronounced a bad book : '' it is a heartless cold-blooded
study of the downfall and degeneration of a woman." ^
For that sort of study, however excellent artistically, he
had no admiration. Nor could he endure books that
leave the reader sad. He told John Esten Cooke he
could never read *' Don Quixote" with pleasure, his
sympathy for the knight made it painful to him ; while
stories with unhappy endings he would not read. He
never dared to re-read **The Pirate" or "The Bride
of Lammermoor " or '* Kenilworth ", " because the end
is unhappy, and people die, and are murdered at the
end." 3

^ James Hannay : A Short Memoir of . . . Thackeray, p. 19.
^ H. Sutherland Edwards : Recollections, p. 36,
^ De Juventute.

i82 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The best of your poems, instead of making me
laugh, had quite another effect [he wrote to Horace
Smith]. All the best comic stuff so affects me.
Sancho, Falstaff, even Fielding in "Amelia."

CHAPTER XI

THACKERAY AND THE PUBLIC (1846)

Thackeray's success with the " Yellowplush Papers" in England and
America — his opinion of "The Great Hoggarty Diamond" — and
John Sterling's appreciation of that story — Thackeray's position in
the literary world in 1843 — his income — his belief in his gift of writ-
ing — some reasons why he did not earlier become famous — his use of
pseudonyms — his best work not published in book-form — he runs
counter to the feeling of the public — his earlier works considered —
the "Yellowplush Correspondence" — "Catherine" — "A Shabby
Genteel Story" — the " Fitz-Boodle Papers" — "Barry Lyndon."

WHEN ''From Cornhill to Grand Cairo"
appeared in January 1846, Thackeray
had been writing for about eight years,
and it is time to pause and consider what
was his position at this time.

At the outset of his career he had achieved consider-
able success with the "Yellowplush Correspondence,"
and this and ''Major Gahagan " (which attracted little
or no attention in this country) were at once pirated in
America, where the books circulated widely. His work
was much appreciated there, and N. P. Willis, then
part proprietor of the New York Corsair, coming to
London, made it his business to secure Thackeray's
services for the weekly paper. " I have engaged a
contributor to the Corsair," Willis wrote to his co-
editor, T. O. Porter. "Who do you think? The

183

i84 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846

author of * Yellowplush ' and 'Major Gahagan.' I
have mentioned it in my jottings, that our readers may
know all about it. He has gone to Paris and will write
letters from there, and afterwards from London, for a
guinea a close cohtmn of the Corsair — cheaper than I
ever did anything in my life. I will see that he is paid
for a while to see how you like him. For myself I think
him the very best periodical writer alive. He is a
royal, daring, fine creature, too. I take the responsi-
bility of it." It will be seen from this letter that Willis
was not only a discerning editor, but also an excellent
man of business.

The favourable start made by Thackeray was not
followed up by him, so far, at least, as concerns the
public. His papers on art and his reviews of books
were well written, trenchant, and amusing, and en-
deared him to editors, who were willing to accept such
work from him ; but his stories did not find so much
favour in their eyes, and attracted little attention from
outsiders. Speaking from the point of view of an
editor anxious to place before his readers such matter
as they liked, " Catherine " was not a success, nor " A
Shabby Genteel Story," nor "The Great Hoggarty
Diamond," which Blackwood'' s Magazine would not
have, and which Eraser would only accept for Regina
if curtailed. "The best thing I ever wrote," said
Thackeray of this story, on the eve of the appearance of
"Vanity Fair." The merits of "The Great Hoggarty
Diamond " were overlooked by the public, which may
have found it pleasant reading, but lacked discernment
to see how good it was. One man, however, found in
it promise of the author's future greatness: "I have

1846] THACKERAY IN 1843 185

seen no new book, but am reading your last," John
Sterling wrote to his mother. " I got hold of the two
first numbers of 'The Hoggarty Diamond,' and read
them with extreme delight. What is there better in
Fielding or Goldsmith? The man is a true genius,
and with quiet comfort might produce masterpieces
which would last as long as any we have, and delight
millions of unborn readers. There is more truth in
nature in one of those papers, than in all Dickens'
novels put together." All of which says a great
deal for the critical faculty of the writer, but unfor-
tunately could do nothing to increase Thackeray's
popularity.

Thackeray's position among his literary brethren at
this time was little better than the place he occupied in
the public estimation. When he was in Ireland, he
endeavoured to persuade Lever, for whom he had
a sincere regard, to leave Dublin, where he was
surrounded by third-rate writers, and to come to
London, where he would be able to make much more
money. So much advantage, indeed, did Thackeray
think his fellow - novelist would derive from his
change of residence, that he backed his advice by
offers of pecuniary and other assistance, if such were
needed. Lever, however, for various reasons, declined
his proposal, and afterwards told a friend that Thackeray
was the most good-natured man in the world, '* but
that help from him would be worse than no help at
all. . . . He (Thackeray) was like a man struggling
to keep his head above water . . . who offers to teach
his friend to swim." Lever also added that Thackeray
"would write for anything and about anything, and

i86 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846

had so lost himself that his status in London was not
good."i

There was much truth in Lever's remark, for
Thackeray in those days was, apart from the quality
of his work, nothing more nor less than a publisher's
hack. From the outset, however, he was successful
in making money, and in 1838 was doing well
enough to refuse a journalistic post worth ^350 a
year. Few young men who embark in the literary
calling make so much, or see their way so clear, in the
first or second year of their apprenticeship, as not to be
allured by the chance of an assured ;^35o a year.
Thackeray, then, was making so much as this within
a year of his settling in London, and, since his output
increased, considerably more than this in the following
years ; but he wanted money, and a good deal of it.
He had no house to keep up, owing to the unfortunate
illness of his wife ; but he had to pay for that lady's
accommodation elsewhere, and for his girls' education,
as well as to put aside something for the future of those
dependent on him ; and he had also, there is reason to
believe, to contribute to the support of his mother and
stepfather.

There is a comfort to think that, however other
works and masterpieces bearing my humble name
have been received by the public, namely, with what
I cannot but think (and future ages will, I have no
doubt, pronounce) to be unmerited obloquy and
inattention, the present article, at least, which I
address to you through the public prints, will be
read by every one of the numerous readers of this
Magazine. What a quantity of writings of the

^ Major Frank Dwyer, in W, Fitzpatrick : Life of Charles Lever.

1846] "BARMECIDE BANQUETS" 187

same hand have you, my dear friend, pored over !
How much delicate wit, profound philosophy (lurking
hid under harlequin's black mask and spangled
jacket, nay, under clown's white lead and vermilion)
— how many quiet wells of deep, gushing pathos,
have you failed to remark as you hurried through
those modest pages, for which the author himself
here makes an apology ! — not that I quarrel with my
lot, or rebel against that meanest of all martyrdoms,
indifference, with which a callous age has visited me —
not that I complain because I am not appreciated by
the present century — no, no ! — he who lives at this
time ought to know better than to be vexed by its
treatment of him — he who pines because Smith or
Snooks doesn't appreciate him, has a poor, puny
vein of endurance, and pays those two personages
too much honour.

This passage in ''Barmecide Banquets,"^ though
apparently written in jocular strain, may be taken as a
fairly accurate description of Thackeray's feelings in
1845. He was disappointed that the merits of his work
had not been discovered, and rather sad and perhaps a
little angry that he was spoken of as only a clever
writer for the periodicals. *' I can suit the magazines,
but I can't suit the public, be hanged to them ! " he
exclaimed, with some bitterness, as, after the failure of
"The Paris Sketch Book" to attract notice, he re-
turned to his pot-boilers.

Poor fellows of the pen and pencil ! We must
live. The public likes light literature, and we write
it. Here am I writing magazine jokes and follies,
and why? Because the public likes such, and will
purchase no other. ^

1 Fraser's Magazine^ November 1845.
^ May Gambols.

i88 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846

Nevertheless, although at the moment he "can't suit
the public, be hanged to them," Thackeray undoubt-
edly felt that his day must come sooner or later (only it
seemed more likely to be later than sooner), for he was
confident of his genius, though perhaps ignorant of its
extent. His lightest sketches, even his airiest criti-
cisms, have a ring about them that shows he knew
his power, and in " Barry Lyndon " there cannot
be detected a trace of mistrust in his capabilities :
throughout that romance one feels the hand of the
artist working with absolute confidence at his first great
masterpiece.

Ainsworth published ''Rookwood" when he was
twenty-nine ; Disraeli was famous as the author of
''Vivian Grey" at two-and-twenty, and, before he was
eleven years older, had written "The Young Duke,"
" Contarini Fleming", "Alroy", " Henrietta Temple "
and " Venetia " ; Albert Smith was only twenty-eight
when he made his mark with "The Adventures of Mr.
Ledbury"; Dickens had written "Sketches by Boz"
when he was four-and-twenty, "Pickwick" a year later,
and "Oliver Twist", "Nicholas Nickleby", " The Old
Curiosity Shop", " Barnaby Rudge " and "American
Notes " before he was thirty. Thackeray in his thirty-
sixth year was unknown beyond the narrow circle of
men whose business it was to search for talent in the
pages of magazines or reviews. What was the reason
of this? Certainly it was not because his genius took
longer to mature than that of the writers just men-
tioned — though, of course, the fact that at first he
looked to art rather than to letters to provide him with
a career gave his literary brethren a few years' start.

1846] TROLLOPE ON THACKERAY 189

Anthony Trollope in his monograph on Thackeray
endeavoured to solve the problem. He relates how
Thackeray had a marked want of assurance (''I can
fancy," Trollope says, "that, as the sheets went from
him every day, he told himself, with regard to every
sheet, that it was a failure. Dickens was quite sure of
his sheet"); how he was '' unsteadfast, idle, change-
able of purpose, aware of his own intellect, but not
trusting it"; and, lastly, how "no man ever failed
more than he to put his best foot foremost." Now, this
explanation is, on the face of it, most unconvincing,
and, what is far worse, misleading. Though Dickens,
and Trollope also, we may be certain, felt quite sure of
their sheets, this has nothing to do with the question —
though if it has, or even if it has not, it is something
Thackeray never overcame. But then, perhaps, this
dissatisfaction with his work was because, besides being
a novelist, Thackeray was an artist to his finger-tips ;
and because, while lesser men might turn away from their
completed work with a self-satisfied smile, he would
glance at his pages mournfully, re-read them, perhaps,
and think, not whether the public would like them, but
how far from perfect in his eyes they were. Indeed,
all his life he was conscious that his work might be
improved ; and it was with a sigh that he sent the
sheets to the printer. The charge of idleness may be
dismissed, if actual output is meant, for Thackeray's
work during the thirty years he devoted to letters
is more than sufficient. If intellectual idleness is
meant, however, then there is something to be said for
Trollope's view ; but of this aspect of the case some-
thing will be said in a later chapter.

I90 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846

There are, however, good and sufficient reasons to
account for the lack of appreciation from which Thack-
eray suffered until his thirty-eighth year : firstly, he
had not given the public a fair chance to discover him;
secondly, he had not yet produced much work that
appealed to the general reader.

To prove the truth of the first statement, that Thack-
eray had not given the public a fair chance to discover
him, it is only necessary to refer to the number of
pseudonyms he employed. Had he elected always to
write over any one of them, say, over the signature of
"Titmarsh," this would have been another matter:
" Titmarsh " would have been as well known as Thack-
eray should have been ; but this was not the case.
"Michael Angelo Titmarsh" wrote reviews and short
stories, and also "The Great Hoggarty Diamond";
" Yellowplush " wrote the " Correspondence " ; " Ikey
Solomons" indited "Catherine"; " Major Gahagan "
related his own "Tremendous Adventures", "The
Professor" and "Sultan Stork," and supplied "Mr.
Wagstaff" with material for one of the four tales
credited to that gentleman; and " Fitz-Boodle " con-
tributed his "Confessions", "Professions", "Men's
Wives," and a story no less important than "Barry
Lyndon."

Besides, much of Thackeray's work appeared
anonymously in the periodicals : and his contributions
to Punch were signed by all manners of fantastic
pseudonyms — to name a few, "Miss Tickletoby,"
"Spec", "Our Fat Contributor", "Paul Pindar,"
"The Mulligan", " Punch's Commissioner ", " Fitz-
Jeames de la Pluche ", " Frederick Haltamont de Mont-

1846] PSEUDONYMS 191

morency."^ His own name had been appended only
to such unimportant trifles as '' Captain Rook and Mr.
Pigeon", "The Fashionable Authoress", and "Going
to see a man hanged." This, it will be seen, rendered
it difficult even for the initiated to recognise all his
work, and to the general reader each name suggested
a different author. Thackeray has explained the ne-
cessity that drove him to the use of so many 710ms-
de-guerre.

It may so happen to a literary man that the stipend
which he receives from one publication is not
sufficient to boil his family pot, and that he must
write in some other quarter. If Brown writes articles
in the daily papers, and articles in the weekly and
monthly periodicals too, and signs the same, he surely
weakens his force by extending his line. It would
be better for him to write incognito, than to placard
his name in so many quarters — as actors understand,
who do not perform in too many pieces on the same
night ; and as painters, who know it is not worth
their while to exhibit more than a certain number
of pictures."

It must not be forgotten, too, that the only books that
Thackeray had published were "The Paris Sketch
Book", "The Second Funeral of Napoleon ", "Comic
Tales and Sketches", "The Irish Sketch Book", and
" From Cornhill to Cairo " — all of them good to read,
but not one of them showing Thackeray at his best :

^ After the beginning- of 1846 he used the following, among other,
signatures in Punch: " PleacemanX ", " Fitzroy Clarence ", "Hibernis
Hibernior", " Leonitus Androcles Hugglestone ", "John Corks",
"Folkestone Canterbury", "Brown the Elder", "Mr. Snob", "Solo-
mon Pacifico", "Goliah Muff", " Gobemouche " and " Thaddeus
Molony."

2 Prose r Papers — On the Press and the Public,

192 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846

indeed, to-day, when his genius is recognised, these
volumes are among the least read of his writings.
"The Great Hoggarty Diamond "and "Barry Lyndon,"
the best of Thackeray's early work, had appeared only
in Eraser's Magazine^ and it cannot be denied that even
modern readers, not specially critical, who know the
value of these stories, would not fully appreciate their
merits, if they were to peruse them, one in four, the
other in a dozen, monthly instalments. This objection,
it is true, is somewhat discounted in the case of the
"Snob Papers," as they might, without losing their
charm, indeed perhaps with advantage, be read singly,
being really only so many units, bound together at the
fountain head. But this does not weaken the argument,
for who, among the public, knew that the Snobographer
was "Titmarsh" and " Fitz-Boodle " and "Yellow-
plush"?

It is not to be denied [Thackeray wrote, realising
the truth of this] that men of signal ability will write
for years in papers and perish unknown — and in so
far their lot is a hard one : and the chances of life
are against them. It is hard upon a man, with
whose work the whole town is ringing, that not a
soul should know or care who is the author who so
delights the public.^

The second point, that Thackeray's work until the
appearance of "The Snobs of England" would not
have greatly attracted the public, is best approached
by assuming that everything he had written was known
to be from his pen. In this case there would have been
a few more to join with Carlyle and Sterling in appre-

^ Proser Papers — Oti the Press and the Public.

1846] ON POPULAR NOVELS 193

ciation, but, it is contended, the vast majority of
readers would have been just as neglectful.

One important reason for this is that, while most of
his contemporaries appealed to the gallery, and on
occasions were not above playing to it, Thackeray, so
far from lowering himself to the level of the public,
held it the duty of the artist to educate it to his own
intellectual level — a performance painfully slow and
not at all remunerative to the tutor. Apart from the
high intellectual level in his writings, nothing would
induce him to abate one jot of his prejudices to suit the
taste of the public, though no one knew better what
would suit the majority of novel-readers.^

I suppose as long as novels last, and authors aim
at interesting their public, there must always be in
the story a virtuous and gallant hero, a wicked
monster, his opposite, and a pretty girl who finds
a champion : bravery and virtue conquer beauty,
and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain
number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last
volume, when justice overtakes him, and honest folks
come by their own. There never was perhaps a
greatly popular story but this simple plot was
carried through it : mere satiric wit is addressed to a
class of readers quite different to those simple souls
who laugh and weep over the novel. I fancy very
few ladies indeed could be brought to like '' Gulliver"
heartily, and (putting the coarseness and difference
of manners out of the question) to relish the wonder-
ful satire of "Jonathan Wild.''^

Yet, knowing this, and anxious as he was to obtain
the approbation of his female readers, Thackeray
bravely and deliberately continued in his own way,

^ Lectures on the English Humourists,
I.— O

194 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846
preaching his philosophy, and indulging his satiric
humour : even the finest work he produced before
** Vanity Fair" must be included in the same class as
"Jonathan Wild," a work that never has been, and never
will be, popular with the general reader. When a critic
accuses him — as some few still do — of having preached
his cynical philosophy for profit, let him consider how
much more profitable it would have been for Thackeray
to write in the style of Bulwer, or Lever, or Disraeli, as
he has so clearly shown he could have done. To give
an example : What success might probably have re-
warded "The Second Funeral of Napoleon" had he
written to please the public, instead of presenting the
work to a hero-loving nation in a form that he knew
ran counter to the feelings of the book-buyers? From
that volume, read this extract, in which is indicated
Thackeray's attitude from the day he began to write
until he lay down the pen for the last time.

I feel that you are angry. I can see from here the
pouting of your lips, and know what you are going
to say. You are going to say, " I will read no more
of this Mr. Titmarsh. There is no subject, however
solemn, but he treats it with flippant irreverence,
and no character, however great, at whom he does
not sneer." Ah, my dear, you are young now and
enthusiastic; and your Titmarsh is old, very old, sad,
and grey-headed. I have seen a poor mother buy a
halfpenny wreath at the gate of Montmartre burying-
ground, and go with it to her little child's grave,
and hang it there over the humble little stone ; and
if ever you saw me scorn the mean offering of the
poor shabby creature, I will give you leave to be as
angry as you will. . . . Something great and good
must have been in this man (Napoleon), something
living and kindly, that has kept his name so cherished

1846] "MAJOR GAHAGAN" 195

in the popular memory, and gained him such lasting
reverence and affection. But, Madam, one may re-
spect the dead without feeling awestricken at the
plumes of the hearse ; and I see no reason why one
should sympathise with the train of mules and
undertakers, however deep may be their mourning.^

The publication of ''Vanity Fair" may be regarded
as bringing to a close the first part of Thackeray's
literary career, for the appearance of that book is the
actual line of division drawn between the bright,
humorous, but unrecognised, writer for the magazines
and the successful novelist. Putting aside his reviews
of books and paintings as well as his short stories, there
remain for consideration, as the basis upon which his
earlier reputation was founded, the " Yellowplush Cor-
respondence ", " Major Gahagan ", *' Catherine ", *' A
Shabby Genteel Story", ''The Great Hoggarty Dia-
mond", the " Fitz-Boodle Papers", including " Men's
Wives" and " Barry Lyndon."

With the exception of " Major Gahagan," a delight-
ful extravaganza, and far more amusing than "Mun-
chausen," there is not another quite pleasant story.
They are all wonderfully clever ; the literary merit is
astonishing : the style is mature, the word-pictures are
delightful, and there are charming touches and beautiful
tender pictures ; but the predominant feature is in-
telligence. When has the great reading public admired
a book only because it is intellectual ? It must be
admitted that the public is right not wholly to admire
such, for it is a truism that a story which suggests
chiefly the cleverness, the wit, and the brilliancy

^ The Second Funeral of Napoleon : Letter II.

I

196 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846

of the writer is not a complete success : it shows
there is something wanting in the story. Readers ask
more than this ; and the taste which demands that the
writer's genius shall not be thought of until the book is
laid down, finished, is quite sound.

There can be no doubt that for some of these early
works Thackeray drew upon some of his own unhappy
experiences ; and these latter, together with the cyni-
cism affected by most young men, give the stories
a certain harshness that makes them compare unfavour-
ably with his more mature productions. His purpose
was honest : he fought against snobbishness and vul-
garity, against gambling, against swindling company-
promoters, against the "Jack Sheppard" class of novels
— indeed, against everything that did not appeal to him
as simple and honourable. But h6 did not select his
weapons carefully ; he fought to the death with the
button off the foil, and it is a fact that many of the
principal characters in his early books are swindlers,
scoundrels, hypocrites, or fools.

Yellowplush, taken from the gutter, sees no reason
why he should not listen at keyholes, read his master's
letters, pry into his private affairs, or do a hundred
other dirty actions. He has no more than a swiftly
passing pang of remorse when, for a bank-note, he
sells the master, who, with all his faults, has been too
good to him. All the people he knows do things of
this sort, and he sees no cause for shame. Then comes
the picture of the Shum family's wretched life, — the
cowardly husband, the bullying wife, the objectionable
daughter, though out of the gloom looms Altamont,
a good fellow, and the rather lovable Mary. Look at

1846] "YELLOWPLUSH CORRESPONDENCE" 197

the actors in the Deuceace tragedy — for tragedy it is
undoubtedly : the scamp Yellowplush, the sharper
Blewitt, the silly and snobbish Dawkins, the revenge-,
ful Lady Griffin, the insignificant Jemima, the terrible
Earl, Deuceace himself, card-sharper, swindler, fortune-
hunter. Only the foolish Matilda remains, and for her
loyalty much may be forgiven her: "My Lord, my
place is with htm.'^ The moral, of course, is that
roguery comes to a bad end. But the retribution that
falls upon Deuceace is planned by his father ; and this
occasions a revulsion of feeling which causes the
sympathy to be transferred to the swindler until nearly
the end — the most sensational Thackeray ever wrote.
There is nothing in his works so terrible, except the
scenes between the Campaigner and Colonel Newcome.
The naturalness of the *' Yellowplush Correspondence "
is its greatest merit. Perhaps its chief fault against
nature is that so many unpleasant people could scarcely
be found together. *'I really don't know where I get
all these rascals for my books," the author said. "I
have certainly never lived with such people."

In "Catherine," the history of jail-birds, told by
one of them, virtuous folk cannot be expected. Mrs.
Cat, Brock, Galgenstein, Thomas Billings, John Hayes,
Mrs. Scare, and Ensign Macshane, in their several
ways, are as bad as bad can be. So vicious are they,
indeed, that the reader is sorry for Catherine : in such
company she could hardly be other than she is. It
must not be forgotten, however, that "Catherine" was
a satire on the " Newgate Novels."

"A Shabby Genteel Story," which shows unmis-
takable signs of the author's development, presents

198 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846

another group of objectionable people. It is, perhaps,
the most displeasing, though certainly not the least
clever, of all the earlier tales. It opens with a descrip-
tion of Margate lodging-house society ; and concludes
with the entrapping into a mock marriage of a loving,
trusting girl, the family Cinderella. Mr. Gann, a
ruined tradesman, drunk three nights a week with
liquor imbibed at the ''Bag o' Nails"; Mrs. Gann,
a virago ; the Misses Macarty, her two daughters by
a first marriage, shrews, with genteel pretensions ; the
tuft-hunting scoundrel, Brandon ; and the blackguard
Cinqbars are the dramatis personce; — the pleasantest
character depicted is that of the honest but vulgar
Fitch.

It is a great relief to turn to ''The Great Hoggarty
Diamond," for at last on Thackeray's literary horizon,
though still outnumbered by hypocrites and snobs,
good simple people are sighted. In the story are a
dreadful aunt and a swindling company-promoter ; but
pathos and tenderness are to be noted, especially in
the handling of Sam's mother and wife ; and the effect
on the parents of the death of a child is beautifully and
reverently described.

Fitz-Boodle, however, is undoubtedly a humorist ;
and in his "Confessions" are many touches suggest-
ing the maturer Thackeray. He is a good-hearted
scamp, and amusing enough. His love-affairs are well
told, and though Minna Lowe is a little wretch per-
haps she was forced to be mean by her father and
her fiance, scoundrels both ; yet Dorothea, silly, sweet
Dorothea, and that sketch for Blanche Amory, Ottilia,
are pleasant and interesting. Certainly they are all

i846] "THE FITZ-BOODLE PAPERS" 199

three very real. Most of us have met Dorothea and
Ottilia, though perhaps our Ottilias have not over-
eaten themselves — some of us have known Minnas too.
But Fitz-Boodle cannot be forgiven for writing those
scandalous chronicles of his friends' private lives —
'' Men's Wives." One of these is the story of a heart-
less coquette and a brother's vengeance, ''The 's

(Executioner's) Wife," but the others tell of mean
lives. The scoundrel Walker, the blackguard Boro-
ski, the humbug Sir George, the foolish Ravenswing
(though she improves with age), the dragon-like Mrs.
Berry, and the selfish, vain, snobbish, and terribly
vulgar Mrs. Dennis Haggarty — the history of Dennis
is a tragedy second only to that of Deuceace — are so
many people whom one would rather not know, and of
whom one would certainly rather not read.

At last comes ''Barry Lyndon," the greatest of all
these stories, and the first in which the author's genius
shines unfettered.

In that strange apologue, Jonathan Wild [Thack-
eray said in his lecture on Fielding], the author
takes for a hero the greatest rascal, coward, traitor,
tyrant, hypocrite, that his wit and experience, both
large in this matter, could enable him to devise or
depict ; he accompanies this villain through all the
transactions of his life, with a grinning deference
and a wonderful mock respect, and doesn't leave him
till he is dangling at the gallows, when the satirist
makes him a low bow and wishes the scoundrel
good-day.

This is what Thackeray has done in "Barry Lyndon,"
only he lets his scoundrel die of delirium tremens in the
nineteenth year of his residence in the Fleet prison, and

20O WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1846

by a most brilliant stroke of genius makes Barry in all
good faith tell the story of his own adventures. Not so
good or so pure as ''The Great Hoggarty Diamond"
is ''Barry Lyndon," but how much grander a con-
ception ! The humour, the satire, the remorseless
irony — read the speech where Barry defends cheating
at cards — the pictures of life, the varied drmnatis per-
sonce^ place it not far below "Esmond" itself in the
list of Thackeray's works. There is no short story in
the language more artistically beautiful than "The
Princess's Tragedy." But just as "Jonathan Wild"
is the most neglected of Fielding's works, so "Barry
Lyndon " is the least read of all Thackeray's. Work
of genius though it be, it is an unpleasant story, as its
author fully realised. " You need not read it," he said
to his eldest daughter ; "you would not like it."

"Wherever shines the sun, you are sure to find
Folly basking in it. Knavery is the shadow at Folly's
heels," Thackeray wrote in his character sketch of
"Captain Rook and Mr. Pigeon." Yet it seems as if
he had not quite grasped the fact that there are things
other than folly or knavery to write about, and that a
surfeit of rogues has an unpleasant after-affect.

"Oh! for a little manly, honest, God-relying sim-
plicity — cheerful, unaffected, and humble ! " ^ he had
prayed many years before, in one of his earliest re-
views ; but it was only with "Vanity Fair" that he
began to give it.

^ Our Batch of Novels for Christmas i8jy, {Eraser's Magazine,
January 1838).

CHAPTER XII

MAN ABOUT TOWN

Thackeray, after his wife's illness, leaves Great Coram Street — and lives
in apartments in Jermyn Street — becomes a frequenter of clubs — the
Garrick — the Reform — the Athenaeum — his description of Bohemia —
and his visits to it — haunts that have disappeared — the "Coal Hole"
— the "Cyder Cellars" — and a description of it in " Pendennis " —
"Evans's" — Colonel Newcome at the "Cave of Harmony" — the
Fielding- Club — Our Club — Thackeray's love of "the play" — some
visits to the theatre as a boy — and at Weimar — the theatre in his
writing's — " The Wolves and the Lamb."

WHEN the illness of his wife deprived him
of a home, Thackeray, who was then about
thirty years of age, sent his children to his
mother, now living at Paris, and himself,
of necessity, lived a bachelor life. He gave up the
house in Great Coram Street, and rented a room at
No. 27, Jermyn Street, close to the Museum of Geology
and within a few doors of Regent Street. There Henry
Vizetelly, who was then founding the Pictorial Times,
called on him early in 1843, and happily placed on
record his impressions of the visit. ''I followed the
young lodging-house slavey to the very top of the
house," he has written, ''and after my card had been
handed in, I was asked to enter the front apartment,
where a tall, slim individual between thirty and thirty-
five years of age, with a pleasant, smiling countenance,

201

202 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

and a bridgeless nose, and clad in dressing-gown of
decided Parisian cut, rose from a small table standing
close to the near window to receive me. When he
stood up the low pitch of the room caused him to look
even taller than he really was, and his actual height
was well over six feet. . . . The apartment was an
exceedingly plainly furnished bedroom, with common
rush-seated chairs, and painted French bedstead, and
with neither looking-glass nor prints on the bare, cold,
cheerless-looking walls. On the table from which Mr.
Thackeray had risen a white cloth was spread, on which
was a frugal breakfast-tray, a cup of chocolate and
some dry toast ; and huddled together at the other end
were writing materials, two or three numbers oiFraser's
Magazine, and a few slips of manuscript. I presented
Mr. Nickisson's letter, and explained the object of my
visit, when Mr. Thackeray at once undertook to write
upon art, to review such books as he might fancy, and
to contribute an occasional article on the Opera, more
with reference to its frequenters than from a critical
point of view. So satisfied was he with the three
guineas offered him for a couple of columns weekly,
that he jocularly expressed himself willing to sign an
agreement for life upon these terms. I can only sup-
pose, from the eager way in which he closed with my
proposal, that the prospect of an additional hundred
and sixty pounds to his income was, at that moment,
anything but a matter of indifference. The humble
quarters in which he was installed seemed at any rate
to indicate that, from some reason or other, strict
economy was just then the order of the day with him."^

^ dances Back through Seventy Years.

GARRICK AND REFORM CLUBS 203

Thackeray, of course, in these days, became a con-
firmed clubman. When he came of age he had been
elected a member of the Garrick Club, which then had
its house in King Street, Covent Garden, the present
building in Garrick Street not being completed until a
year after his death. This was his favourite club for
many years : '* We, the happy initiated, never speak of
it as the Garrick ; to us it is 'the G.', ' the little G.' —
the dearest place in the world," he declared in a speech
at one of the Shakespeare birthday dinners. Always
popular there, in days to come he was the great man of
the club, and the immense influence he had was shown
when in the late fifties he quarrelled with Edmund Yates.
He became a member of the Reform Club in 1840,
having been proposed by Martin Thackeray and
seconded by Henry Webbe. New members of the
Reform are still regaled with descriptions of how the
great man used to stand in the smoking-room, his back
to the fire, his legs rather wide apart, his hands thrust
into the trouser pockets, and his head stiffly thrown
backward, while he joined in the talk of the men
occupying the semicircle of chairs in front of him.^
He introduced the club into his novels, and described
it in the ''Snob Papers" and the letters of "Brown
the Elder " ; and the club returned the compliment after
his death by purchasing a painting of him by Samuel
Laurence, and hanging it in a prominent position in
the Strangers' Room. An amusing story is told of
Thackeray going into the coffee-room of the Reform,
and seeing " beans and bacon " on the memi. He was

^ Sir Wemyss Reid : Some Club Ghosts (CasselFs Magazine, June
1897).

204 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

to have dined elsewhere that evening, but he could not
resist this alluring dish, and, after hastily writing a
note to his host begging to be excused on the ground
that he had met an old friend he had not seen for
many a long day, he sat down at a table, prepared
thoroughly to enjoy himself.

Of the Athenaeum Club Thackeray did not become a
member till later. His name had been entered in the
Candidates' Book in February 1846, when he was pro-
posed by the Rev. William Harness and seconded by
Charles Duller. Soon after, however, he became
famous, and in 1850, long before he came up for
election in the ordinary way, his name was suggested
in committee by Dean Milman, supported by Macaulay
and Croker, as a person suitable for election under
rule ii., which provides for the annual introduction,
without recourse to ballot, of a limited number of
persons of distinguished eminence in science, litera-
ture, art, or the public services. The proposal was
opposed by one committee man, and one voice in
this matter excludes. Hayward was deputed by Mil-
man to tell Thackeray, who took the rejection in good
part.

Thank you for your kind note [Thackeray wrote to
Hayward, on February i, 1850]. I was quite pre-
pared for the issue of the kind effort made at the
Athen^um in my behalf; indeed, as a satirical writer,
I rather wonder that I have not made more enemies
than I have. I don't mean enemies in a bad sense,
but men conscientiously opposed to my style, art,
opinions, impertinences, and so forth. There must
be thousands of men to whom the practice of ridicule
must be very offensive ; doesn't one see such in
society, or in one's own family? persons whose

ATHEN^UM CLUB 205

nature was not gifted with a sense of humour. Such
a man would be wrong not to give me a black-ball,
or whatever it is called — a negatory nod of his
honest, respectable, stupid old head. And I submit
to his verdict without the slightest feeling of ani-
mosity against my judge. Why, Dr. Johnson would
certainly have black-balled Fielding, whom he pro-
nounced ''A dull fellow. Sir, a dull fellow!" and
why shouldn't my friend at the Athenaeum ? About
getting in I don't care twopence : but indeed I am
very much pleased to have had such sureties as
Hallam and Milman, and to know that the gentlemen
whom you mention were so generous in their efforts
to serve me. What does the rest matter? If you
should ever know the old gentleman (for old I am
sure he is, steady and respectable) who objects to
me, give him my best compliments, and say I think
he was quite right to exercise his judgment honestly,
and to act according to that reason with which
heaven has mercifully endowed him. But that he
would be slow, I wouldn't in the least object to meet
him ; and he in his turn would think me flippant,
etc. Enough of these egotisms. Didn't I tell you
once before, that I feel frightened almost at the
kindness of people regarding me? May we all be
honest fellows, and keep our heads from too much
vanity. Your case is a very different one : yours
was a stab with a sharp point ; and the wound, I
know, must have been a most severe one. So much
the better in you to have borne it as you did. I
never heard in the least that your honor suffered by
the injury done you, or that you lost the esteem (how
should you ?) of any single friend, because an
enemy dealt you a savage blow. The opponents
in your case exercised a right to do a wrong ;
whereas, in the other, my Athenaeum friend has
done no earthly harm to any mortal, but has estab-
lished his own character and got a great number of
kind testimonials to mine.^

^ Correspondence of Abraham Hayward,

206 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Again in the following year Thackeray's name was
brought forward by his friends, and this time he was
elected. His name was entered on the roll of the club
as a barrister, but he was, of course, proposed for the
distinction as *'the author of 'Vanity Fair', * Pen-
dennis,' and other well-known works of fiction."

Thackeray in these days made excursions into Bo-
hemia, and enjoyed himself hugely ; but he was never
a Bohemian in the sense that Porson was, or Maginn,
belonging rather to the more modern type that wears
the ''boiled shirt" that provoked the scorn of an
earlier generation, sits in the stalls at a theatre, and is
a member of at least one reputable club.

A pleasant land, not fenced with drab Stucco like
Tyburnia or Belgravia ; not guarded by a huge
standing army of footmen ; not echoing with noble
chariots ; not replete with polite chintz drawing-
rooms and neat tea-tables ; a land over which hangs
an endless fog, occasioned by much tobacco ; a land
of chambers, billiard rooms, supper rooms, oysters ;
a land of song ; a land where soda-water flows freely
in the morning ; a land of tin dish-covers from
taverns, and frothing porter ; a land of lotus-eating
(with lots of cayenne pepper), of pulls on the river,
of delicious reading of novels, magazines, and saun-
terings in many studios ; a land where men call each
other by their Christian names ; where most are old,
where almost all are young, and where, if a few old-
sters enter, it is because they have preserved more
tenderly and carefully than others their youthful
spirits, and the delightful capacity to be idle. I have
lost my way to Bohemia now, but it is certain that
Prague is the most picturesque city in the world. ^

So Thackeray wrote lovingly, tenderly, thinking of
^ Philip.

IN BOHEMIA 207

the visits he had paid to the happy land where for the
time being worries and trouble are thrown aside : —

Sorrows, begfone !
Life and its ills,
Duns and their bills,
Bid we to flee.
Come with the dawn,
Blue-devil sprite,
Leave us to-nig"ht.
Round the old tree.^

Thackeray's Bohemia has gone, leaving scarcely a
trace behind. Gone is the little club on the first floor of
a small old-fashioned tavern in Dean Street, Soho, kept
by Dicky Moreland, the last man in London to wear
a pigtail and topboots, where, to the delight of George
Augustus Sala, Thackeray one night sang ''The
Mahogany Tree." The little establishment in the
Strand, beloved of Thackeray, where two elderly maiden
ladies served fish suppers, has disappeared. Ranelagh
Gardens has been improved off the face of the map ;
so has Vauxhall Gardens, with its twenty thousand
additional lamps burnt every night, where Arthur Pen-
dennis went with an order that admitted "the Editor
of the Pall Mall Gazette and friend," and there,
rescuing Captain Costigan from an awkward predica-
ment, was rewarded with the acquaintance of pretty
Fanny Bolton !

No longer exists the "Wrekin" in Broad Court,
Drury Lane, famous for Shrewsbury cakes and Tewkes-
bury ales, where the little coterie of authors, actors,
and artists, calling itself the '' Rationals," assembled
on Saturdays to dine at four o'clock ; nor the old

^ The Mahogany Tree.

2o8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Gray's Inn Coffee-house, which also had its Thackeray-
associations. The novelist was at one time seen going
eastward at an hour of the day when all the rest of the
world was moving towards the west, and once a curious
person tracked him to the Gray's Inn Coffee-house,
and saw him sit down to dinner there in solitary state.
*'Ah!" said Thackeray, when years after Cordy
Jeaffreson recalled the incident to him. " That was
when I was drinking the last of that wonderful bin of
port. It was rare wine. There were only two dozen
bottles and a few bottles over, when I came upon the
remains of that bin, and I forthwith bargained with
mine host to keep them for me. I drank every bottle
and every drop of that remainder by myself. I shared
never a bottle with living man ; and so long as the
wine lasted, I slipped off to the Gray's Inn Coffee
House with all possible secrecy short of disguise,
whenever I thought a dinner and a bottle by myself
would do me good."^

Gone, too, are the '* Coal Hole," the "Cyder
Cellars," and "Evans's"; but these places deserve
more than passing mention. The "Coal Hole,"
owned by John Rhodes, was situated in a court off
the Strand, on the site now occupied by the stage of
Terry's Theatre, and here Thackeray would often come
about midnight for a Welsh Rarebit. The "Cyder
Cellars," managed by John Rhodes's brother William,
was in Maiden Lane, between the little Jewish
synagogue and the stage-door of the Adelphi Theatre,
and it attracted a more distinguished company than
the "Coal Hole." Porson had made it his house of

^ J. C. Jeaffreson : A Book of Recollections, Vol. I, p. 288.

THE CYDER CELLARS 209

call, and night after night would sit there babbling
Greek in his cups : after his death his portrait was
hung in the room. Maginn and most of the " Eraser "
set were visitors, more or less regular ; and Charles
Dickens, and ''Disraeli the Younger," and Dr.
Maguire, and Napoleon III before he became
President of the French Republic. There in the days
of his youth Thackeray heard Sloman — the ''Nadab"
of ''The Newcomes" — sing his improvisations; and
to him he referred in the National Standard^

Sloman repeats the strains his father sang,^

and appended to this line a note: "It is needless to
speak of this eminent vocalist and improvisatore. He
nightly delights a numerous and respectable audience
at the Cyder Cellars." Here also, in October 1848,
Thackeray went, at least twice, " to hear the man sing
about going to be hanged." This was the once famous
"Sam Hall," sung by the comedian Ross, who drew
the town to the "Cyder Cellars." "Sam Hall" was
the chaunt of a chimney-sweep, who was to be hanged
for murder the next morning, and, having some faint
glimmering of the theory of heredity, endeavoured to
father his crimes on his forbears.

" My name it Is Sam Hall,

Chimney-sweep,

Chimney-sweep ;
My name it is Sam Hall,

Chimney-sweep.
My name it is Sam Hall ;
I've robbed both great and small ;
And now I pays for all :

Damn your eyes."

^ Mr. Braham{Natio7ial Standard, May ii, 1833).
I.— P

210 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Each verse ended with the same three words, and
the expression long survived the song. This popular
ditty was given with tremendous effect about two
o'clock in the morning. Albert Smith described the
"Cyder Cellars" in "The Medical Student" and
"The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury"; and Thackeray
gave a description of the place, called for the nonce
the " Back Kitchen," where George Warrington took
Arthur Pendennis, and where Tom Sergeant, Clive
Newcome, and Fred Bayham foregathered.

Healthy country tradesmen and farmers, in
London for their business, came and recreated
themselves with the jolly singing and suppers at
the Back Kitchen, — squads of young apprentices
and assistants, the shutters being closed over the
scene of their labours — came hither, for fresh air
doubtless, — rakish young medical students, gallant,
dashing, what is called " loudly" dressed, and (must
it be owned?) somewhat dirty, — came here, smoking
and drinking and vociferously applauding the
songs ; — young University bucks were to be found
here, too, with that indescribable genteel simper
which is only learned at the knees of Alma Mater ; —
and handsome young guardsmen, and florid bucks
from the St. James's Street Clubs ; — nay ! senators
English and Irish ; and even members of the House
of Peers. ^

The most famous of all these taverns that were the
links between the coffee-houses of Addison's time —
the Will's and Button's — and the modern music-halls
was Evans's, at the west corner of Covent Garden
Piazza — the frontage, unaltered through the centuries,
may be seen in Hogarth's picture, "Morning."

^ Pendennis, chap. xxxi.

EVANS'S 211

** Evans's, late Joy's," was the punning inscription
on the lamp, though in Thackeray's day the pro-
prietor was John, invariably called '* Paddy," Green.
This was a great resort of men about town, and
among the habitues were Douglas Jerrold, Horace
Mayhew, Serjeant Ballantine, James Hannay, Lionel
Lawson, Albert Smith and his brother Arthur,
George Augustus Sala, and John Leech. At one time
ribald songs were an element of the programme, as
those readers of "The Newcomes" are aware who
know that the '' Cave of Harmony" had for its proto-
type "Evans's."

One night Colonel Newcome, with his son Clive,
came here "to see the wits." A timely warning to the
landlord from Jones of Trinity that a boy was in the
room, and a gentleman who was quite a greenhorn,
and the songs were so carefully selected that "a lady's
school might have come in and, but for the smell of
the cigars and brandy and water, have taken no harm
by what occurred." The Colonel was delighted,
especially when Nadab, the improvisatore, devoted
a verse to him and to his son, and he sang a ditty
himself, "Wapping Old Stairs." Unfortunately for
the peace of the evening, however. Captain Costigan
entered, very drunk, and insisted upon singing one of
his most ribald songs.

"Silence!" Colonel Newcome roared at the end
of the second verse of drunken Captain Costigan's
song at the "Cave of Harmony." "'Go on!'"
cries the Colonel, in his high voice, trembling with
anger. " Does any gentleman say ' Go on ' ? Does
any man who has a wife and sisters, or children at
home, say " Go on " to such disgusting ribaldry as

212 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

this? Do you dare, Sir, to call yourself a gentle-
man, or to say you hold the King's commission and
to sit down amongst Christians and men of honour,
and defile the ears of young boys with this wicked
balderdash ? "

*' Why bring young boys here, old boy?" cries a
voice of the malcontents.

"Why? Because I thought I was coming to a
society of gentlemen," cried out the indignant
Colonel. "Because I never could have believed
that Englishmen could meet together and allow a
man, and an old man, so to disgrace himself. For
shame, you old wretch ! Go home to your bed, you
hoary old sinner ! And for my part, I'm not sorry
that my son should see, for once in his life, to what
shame and degradation and dishonour, drunkenness
and whisky may bring a man. Never mind the
change, sir ! — curse the change ! " says the Colonel,
facing the amazed waiter. " Keep it till you see me
in this place again, which will be never — by George,
never ! " And shouldering his stick, and scowling
round at the company of scared bacchanalians, the
indignant gentleman stalked away, his boy after
him.

Clive seemed rather shamefaced, but I fear the
rest of the company looked still more foolish.

' ' A usst, que diahle venait-il faire dans cette
galere? " says King of Corpus to Jones of Trinity ;
and Jones gave a shrug of his shoulders, which were
smarting, perhaps ; for that uplifted cane of the
Colonel's had somehow fallen on the back of every
man in the room.^

Before "The Newcomes " was written, however,
songs of an equivocal nature had given place to
choruses sung by trained choir-boys, whose fresh young
voices in the old glees of Purcell, Niedermayer, and
Pearsall, were a source of delight to Thackeray.

^ The Newcoines, chap. i.

FIELDING CLUB 213

It was outside ** Evans's" that Lowell, being on a
visit to London, met the novelist looking so haggard
and worn that he asked if he were ill. '* Come inside,
and I'll tell you all about it," said the latter. *' I have
killed the Colonel." At a table, in a quiet corner
Thackeray took the manuscript from his pocket, and
read the chapter that records the death of Colonel
Newcome. When he came to the end, the tears, that
had been swelling his lids, trickled down his face, and
the last word was almost an inarticulate sob.

To the last Thackeray loved Bohemian gatherings,
and in the last month of his life went with Leech to
** Evans's." When he was at the height of his fame, in
1852, he took an active part in the formation of a club,
established owing to the impossibility of getting supper
at a late hour at the Garrick, and he gave it the pleasant,
convivial title of the Fielding Club. Among the mem-
bers were Arcedeckne, Jullien, George Henry Lewes,
Russell the war-correspondent ; Tom Macdonald, the

Laughing Tom is laughing yet

of ''The Ballad of Bouillabaisse"; Tom Taylor;
Pigott, subsequently Examiner of Plays ; Shirley
Brooks, Charles Lamb Kenney, Talfourd, Baron
Huddlestone, Serjeant Ballantine, Leigh Murray, John
Leech, and Albert Smith. The last wrote some verses
describing tLe members, some lines of which ran :

"And then there came a mighty man who, 'tis but fair to
state,
Among the small is affable, though great among the great —
The good Pendennis.''^

^ Charles Mackay : Recollections, p. 300.

214 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Even so late as 1861 Thackeray joined '* Our Club,"
a literary and social rendezvouSy next door to Clunn's
Hotel, where the members dined. Many of the Punch
staff, and others of the novelist's friends belonged to
*' O.C," as it was called, and here Thackeray was in his
element. "I cannot conceive him to have ever been
seen to greater advantage than when he was sitting
with a party of his congenial comrades at O.C., gossip-
ing tenderly about dead authors, artists, and actors, or
cheerily and in the kindliest spirit about living notabili-
ties," Cordy Jeaffreson has written. "It was very
pleasant to watch the white-haired veteran, and also to
hear him (though at best he sang indifferently), whilst
he trolled forth his favourite ballads touching Little
Billee and Father Martin Luther. Better still it was
to regard the radiant gratification of his face, whilst
Horace May hew sang ' The Mahogany Tree,' perhaps
the finest and most stirring of Thackeray's social songs,
or was throwing his soul into the passionate ' Marseil-
laise.'"!

No record of Thackeray's pleasures may omit mention
of the theatre, which was one of his abiding joys. No
boy had ever derived more pleasure from this form of
entertainment ; not even little Rawdon Crawley, one
of fifty gown-boys in the Chapel of Whitefriars School,
''thinking, not about the sermon, but about going
home next Saturday, when his father would certainly
tip him, and perhaps would take him to the play," can
have experienced a deeper thrill of delight. In the
schoolboy's diary comes that glorious announcement :
''Wednesday, December 27th; Papa took me to the

1 A Book of Recollections f Vol. I, p. 286.

THE PANTOMIMES 215

Pantomime." That was the red-letter day of young
Thackeray's year, of the years, indeed, for rarely a
Boxing-Day came that did not find him at the Panto-
mime.

Very few men in the course of nature can expect
to see all the pantomimes in one season, but I hope
to the end of my life I shall never forego reading
about them in that delicious sheet of the Times which
appears on the morning after Boxing-Day. Perhaps
reading is even better than seeing. The best way,
I think, is to say you are ill, lie in bed, and have the
paper for two hours, reading all the way down from
Drury Lane to the Britannia at Hoxton.^

It was only in his later years, however, that he was
content to read about them, for in his youth he never
missed an opportunity to visit a theatre. In "Vanity
Fair" he recalled one blissful night when he and
another Carthusian obtained permission to appear on
Drury Lane stage when Dowton and Liston played in
*'The Hypocrite," and a certain august personage was
in the audience.

The King ! There he was ! Beef-eaters were
before the august box. The Marquis of Steyne
(Lord of the Powder Closet) and other great officers
of state were behind the chair on which he sat — He
sat — florid of face, portly of person, covered with
orders and in a rich curling head of hair. How we
sang God save him ! How the house rocked and
shouted with that magnificent music ! How they
cheered and cried, and waved handkerchiefs ! Ladies
wept ; mothers clasped their children ; some fainted
with emotion. People were suffocated in the pit,
shrieks and groans rising up amidst the writhing
and shouting mass there of his people who were,

^ Round about a Christmas Tree.

2i6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

and, indeed, showed themselves almost to be, ready-
to die for him. Yes, we saw him. Fate cannot
deprive us of that. Others have seen Napoleon.
Some few still exist who have beheld Frederick the
Great, Doctor Johnson, Marie Antoinette, etc. — be
it our reasonable boast to our children that we saw
George the Good, the Magnificent, the Great.

At Weimar Thackeray went frequently to the theatre.
Opera was given there, though the orchestra, under
the direction of Hummel, was, in his opinion, far
superior to the singers. During the winter he heard
"Medea", ''The Barber of Seville", "II Flauto
Magico", "The Battle of Vittoria", and "Fidelio,"
in the last of which Madame Schroder-Devrient sang.
He saw "Hernani," and recommended his family to
read it ; went with an actor to Erfurt to see Schiller's
"Die Rauber" (which play was thought too patriotic
and free for the Weimar Court Theatre) ; and admired
Devrient's magnificent performance of "Franz Moor,"
though he declared, " I never saw anything so horrible
in my life." During his early visit to Paris he saw
Mile. Mars in "Valerie" and Madame Dejazet in
^^ Napoleon a Briejine,'^ as well as Rachel, who was
trying to revive the taste for Racine ; but Thackeray
thought she could only succeed in galvanising the
corpse, not bring it to life : he was glad of this, for,
he said, he would rather go to see Deburan dancing
on a rope, " his lines are quite as natural and poetical."

When he was reading for the bar, "As for theatres,
I scarcely go more than once a week, which is moder-
ate for me," he wrote to his mother. " In a few days
come the pantomimes. Huzza ! " He was always
happy in a theatre. Once he asked a friend if he

'^^ ^ ///J ' ^|l|.l^|liA'l\ul

THACKERAY AT THE I'l.AY
From a sketch hv Fredcj-ick W'alkc

LOVES THE THEATRE 217

loved **the play," and receiving the qualified answer,
*'Ye-es, I like a good play," *'Oh, get out!" the
great man retorted. " I said the play. You don't
even understand what I meanf'' And Edward Fitz-
Gerald went with him in the pit one night to witness
a piece which, with its mock sentiment, indifferent
humour, and ultra-melodramatic scenes bored the poet
so terribly that he was about to suggest they should
leave, when Thackeray turned to him, and exclaimed
delightedly, *' By G— d ! isn't it splendid?"

In his youth, Thackeray declared, ''the stage was
covered with angels, who sang, acted, and danced,"
and '* all the dancers were as beautiful as houris " ; and
humorously he announced his eventual disillusion.

What is most certain and lamentable is the decay
of stage beauty since the days of George IV.
Think of Sontag ! I remember her in "Otello"
and" Donna del Lago" in '28. I remember being
behind the scenes at the opera (where numbers of us
young fellows of fashion used to go) and seeing
Sontag let her hair fall down over her shoulders
previous to her murder by Donzelli. Young fellows
have never seen beauty like that^ heard such a voice,
seen such hair, such eyes. Don't tell me! A man
who has been about town since the reign of George
IV., ought he not to know better than you young
lads who have seen nothing? The deterioration of
women is lamentable ; and the conceit of young
fellows more lamentable still, that they won't see this
fact, but persist in thinking their time as good as
ours.^

The theatre figures largely in Thackeray's writings,
from the days when he began to contribute to Fraser's

^ Dc Juventute.

2i8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Magazine. One paper in ''The Paris Sketch Book"
is entirely devoted to the consideration of ''French
Dramas and Melodramas," and one of the "Yellow-
plush Papers" is devoted to a notice of Bulwer Lytton's
"Sea-Captain." " Mr. Spec." takes his young friend,
Augustus Jones, to the pantomime at Covent Garden
Theatre ; and, a dozen years later, Mr. Roundabout
describes the pantomime to which he went in company
with Bobby Miseltow : while of that once popular
dancer Miss Delancy {nee Budge), and of her daughter
Morgiana (so named after that celebrated part in "The
Forty Thieves " which Miss Budge performed with
unbounded applause both at the "Surrey" and at the
"Wells"), the curious may read in the printed "Con-
fessions " of that eminent historian of society, George
Savage Fitz-Boodle, Esq.

In the novels there is frequent mention of the theatre,
and nearly everyone goes to the play or the opera. In
"Vanity Fair," Cuff (whom Dobbin thrashed), the
great dandy of the Swishtail seminary, was at an
absurdly youthful age acquainted with the merits of the
principal actors, preferring Mr. Kean to Mr. Kemble.
Little George Osborne, too, with Rawson the foot-
man, visited all the principal theatres of the metropolis,
knew the names of all the actors from Drury Lane to
Sadler's Wells, and performed, indeed, many of the
plays to the Todd family and their youthful friends,
with West's famous characters, in their pasteboard
theatre.

During the Waterloo campaign, everybody in Brus-
sels went to the opera, where it was almost like being
in old England, so many familiar British faces were to

THE THEATRE IN "VANITY FAIR" 219

be seen ; but the coup d'osil of the Brussels opera-house
did not strike Mrs. O'Dowd as being so fine as the
theatre in Fishamble Street, Dublin, nor was the
French music at all equal, in her opinion, to the melo-
dies of her native country. Here it was on a certain
memorable evening when Mr. and Mrs. George
Osborne, Dobbin, and Mrs. O'Dowd were in a box
facing another occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley and General Tufto, that Becky played Osborne
against the General — and won them both. Becky had
her little box on the third tier of the opera-house in
London, too, and in the crush-room was cut by Lady
Bareacres and Lady de la Mole, both of whom she had
known in Brussels, though, after her presentation at
Court, she made things equal by refusing to recognise
Lady Crackenbury and Mrs. Washington White, whose
invitations she had once eagerly sought. She (the
daughter of a French opera dancer) acted in the char-
ades at Gaunt House, where she made such a success
as Clytemnestra ('*Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was quite
killing in the part," said Lord Steyne), and, as a
French Marquise in the second charade, sang *'The
Rose upon my Balcony " from Sir George Thrum's
opera, ** The Brigand's Wife " — this was a favourite song
also of "The Ravenswing" (Mrs. Hooker Walker).
It is hinted that Becky may have been the Madame
Rebecque whose appearance in the opera of ** La
Dame Blanche " at Strassburg in 1830 gave rise to a
furious uproar in the theatre there. Finally, during
their continental tour, Amelia and her boy, George,
and Dobbin, and Jos were frequent visitors to the
Pumpernickel Staats-Theater.

220 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

They went to the opera often of evenings — to those
snug unassuming dear old operas in the German
towns, where the noblesse sits and cries and knits
stockings on the one side, over against the bourgeoisie
on the other ; and His Transparency the Duke and
his Transparent family, all very fat and good-natured,
come and occupy the great box in the middle ; and
the pit is full of the most elegant slim-waisted officers
with straw-coloured moustachios, and twopence a day
on full pay. Here it was that Emmy found her de-
light, and was introduced for the first time to the
wonders of Mozart and Cimarosa. The Major's
musical taste has been before alluded to, and his
performances on the flute commended. But perhaps
the chief pleasure he had in these operas was in
watching Emmy's rapture while listening to them.
A new world of love and beauty broke upon her when
she was introduced to those divine compositions: this
lady had the keenest and finest sensibility, and how
could she be indifferent when she heard Mozart?
The tender parts of "Don Juan" awakened in her
raptures so exquisite that she would ask herself when
she went to say her prayers of a night, whether it was
not wicked to feel so much delight as that with which
''Vedrai Carino" and " Batti Batti" filled her gentle
little bosom? But the Major, whom she consulted
upon this head, as her theological adviser (and who
himself had a pious and reverent soul) said that, for
his part, every beauty of art and nature made him
thankful as well as happy ; and that the greatest
pleasure to be had is listening to fine music, as in
looking at the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful land-
scape or picture, was a benefit for which we might
thank Heaven as sincerely as for any other worldly
blessing.^

The interest of the earlier part of ''Pendennis" is
placed almost entirely in stage-land. We are intro-
duced to the full strength of Mr. Bingley's stock com-

^ Vanity Fair, chap. Ixii.

THE THEATRE IN "PENDENNIS" 221

pany at the Theatre Royal, Chatteris, from Mr. Bows
the first violinist in the orchestra, and Mrs. Dropsicum
(Bingley's mother-in-law, great in "Macbeth") who
takes the money at the doors, to the leading lady her-
self. Miss " Milly"" Fotheringay. Foker and Pendennis
attended a performance of "The Stranger" in which
Miss Fotheringay's Mary Haller is supported by the
Countess Wintersen of Mrs. Bingley, the Baron Stein-
forth of Garbetts and the Tobias of Goll. Bingley
played the hero and was attired in light pantaloons
and Hessian boots and had the stage jewellery on too,
and allowed his little finger to quiver out of his cloak
with a sham diamond ring covering the first joint of
the finger and twiddling in the faces of the pit — this
had belonged to George Frederick Cooke, who had it
from Mr. Quin, who may have bought it for a shilling.
After this Pendennis, falling in love with Miss
Fotheringay, went to the theatre nearly every night,
and on the occasion of that lady's Benefit took his
mother and little Laura and the Rev. Robert Smirke
to see "Hamlet." Miss Fotheringay, of course, was
the Ophelia, and Mr. Hornbull from London the
Hamlet " for this night only," Mr. Bingley modestly con-
tenting himself with Horatio, reserving his full strength
for William in "Black Eyed Susan," which was the
second piece, and in this the beneficiaire played Susan,
Mr. Goll the Admiral, and Mr. Garbetts Captain Bold-
weather. Later, through the instrumentality of Major
Pendennis, Lord Steyne sent down to Chatteris Dolphin,
the London manager, who also figures in " Lovel the
Widower" as the employer of the ballet girl, Bessy
Bellenden. Dolphin, then running the Museum

222 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Theatre under the patronage of the most noble Marquis,
came, attended by his secretary William Minns, saw a
performance of *' Pizarro," and was so delighted with
Miss Fotheringay's impersonation of Cora that he
forthwith gave her an engagement to play in London
at once. And with her departure Pendennis's interest
in the Chatteris Theatre ceased — and so does ours.
When Pendennis saw the lady again she was the
wife of the old heau, Sir Charles Mirabel, and he
wondered how he could ever have thought he loved
her.

Space forbids reference to the theatre in the other
stories, though it figures in all, and especially in
''Esmond" and "The Virginians"; but before pass-
ing from the subject, a word must be said of Thackeray's
first and only serious attempt to write for the stage.
After his return from the first American tour he sub-
mitted his comedy, "The Wolves and the Lamb," to
Buckstone of the Haymarket and then to Wigan of the
Olympic ; but neither of these managers, despite the
popularity of the author, would produce it. "I thought
I could write a play," Thackeray said, sadly, "and I
find I can't." He was quite right. The play is, of
course, well written, the dialogue is amusing, and the
characters admirably drawn ; but there is too much talk
and too little action. It is essentially for the closet, not
for the stage : a novel, with dramatic possibilities, cast
in the form of a comedy. Thackeray eventually took
this view, for, retaining much of the dialogue, he con-
verted "The Wolves and the Lamb " into " Lovel the
Widower." He was never quite convinced, however,
that the play might not have been successful.

"THE WOLVES AND THE LAMB" 223

Is *'Lovel the Widower" the story which you
propose to dramatise for Miss Sedgwick and Mr.
Robson? [he wrote to Cecil Howard, on January 20,
1862]. I wrote it originally as a drama myself,
having Mr. Robson in my eye for the principal
character. Mr. Wigan, however, did not think the
piece suitable for his theatre, and declined it ; as also
did Mr. Buckstone, unless I would make alterations,
which I did not choose to do.

We are going to have a private representation of
this piece by some of my friends and family, and I
had it printed to save the trouble of copying. The
conversations at the commencement seem needlessly
long, and probably are unsuitable for the stage, but
these could surely be curtailed ; the last act is so very
lively and amusing that I cannot but think Mr. Wigan
and Mr. Buckstone were wrong concerning it.

Will Mr. Robson have the kindness to read it
over? It seems to me that he and Miss Sedgwick
will be excellent representatives of the two principal
characters.

CHAPTER XIII

"VANITY FAIR" (1847-1848)

Thackeray's position in literary circles in 1846 — his connection with
Punch — his early contributions to that periodical — the proprietors
dissatisfied with " Miss Tickletoby's Lectures " — which were there-
fore discontinued — Thackeray takes his place at the Round Table,
1843 — '^'Jeames's Diary" attracts attention — "The Snobs of Eng-
land " — and the influence of these papers on Thackeray's reputation
— Thackeray determined to make a bid for fame — "Vanity Fair"
begun — the MS. of the novel not "hawked round the town" —
accepted by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans — Thackeray's letters to
Aytoun in January 1847 — " Vanity Fair " published in monthly
numbers — its sales increase — Thackeray's works never so popular
as those of Dickens — " Currer Bell" dedicates "Jane Eyre" to
Thackeray — Abraham Hayward praises "Vanity Fair" in the
Edinburgh Review — the charge of cynicism brought against Thack-
eray — his defence — his philosophy — the text from which he preached —
" Vanitas Vanitatum " — the gospel of love — Thackeray's character
criticised by his contemporaries — he created no heroes or heroines —
his desire to draw men and women— his characters human — his
portrait gallery — the novelist's depreciators — his faults as a novelist
— his asides — his method of writing — his style — his place in English
literature.

WHATEVER the cause, it is a fact that
at the beginning of 1846 Thackeray's
work had attracted little attention beyond
the circle of his friends and his literary
associates. Indeed, he subsequently remarked that he
had nearly "come to forty year" before he was recog-
nised as belonging to a class of writer at all above the
ordinary contributor to the magazines. Certainly the

224

ImwICl

^

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
From a draining by Coiait /XOrsny. By />erinissio>i of Major M'illiain It. /.aiiil'cri

iS47] THACKERAY IN 1846 225

proprietor of Fraser's Magazine^ though valuing him
as his contributor, never thought he was likely to be
anything more than that : ''When a little time before
' Vanity Fair ' was published, I had asked for per-
mission to republish some tales from Fraser's Magazine,
it was given to me with a smile — almost an ironical
one, as much as to say ' Much good may you get out
of them,'" Thackeray told Sutherland Edwards some
years after the novel had made a success, adding
complacently, ''They bring me in ;^300 a year."^ In-
deed, before "Vanity Fair" appeared, Thackeray
realised his position was such that he must bear in
silence and with a good grace such petty rebuffs and
discouragement as fell to his lot.

I have just received and acknowledge with many
thanks your banker's bill for £2.\. From them and
from you, I shall always be delighted to receive com-
munications of this nature [he wrote on October 16,
1845, to Macvey Napier, the editor of the Edinhurgh
RevieWy concerning the article on N. P. Willis].
From your liberal payment I can't but conclude that
you reward me not only for labouring, but also for
being mutilated in your service. I assure you I
suffered cruelly by the amputation which you were
obliged to inflict upon my poor dear paper. I mourn
still — as what father can help doing for his children ?
— for several lovely jokes and promising facetice,
which were born and might have lived but for your
scissors urged by ruthless necessity. I trust, how-
ever, that there are many more which the future may
bring forth, and which will meet with more favour
in your eyes. ... I quite agree with your friend
who says Willis was too leniently used. O, to think
of my pet passages gone for ever.^

^ H. Sutherland Edwards : Personal Recollections, p. 37.
^ Selections from the Correspondence of Macvey Napier, p. 499.
I.— Q

226 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

This is very charming in its playfulness, but it is
not the letter of a man who has arrived. Consider
in what terms Thackeray would have protested three
years later against the mutilation of any review written
by him ! But the time was not far distant when, as
John Leech happily put it, Mr. Michael Angelo
Titmarsh was to appear in his celebrated character
of Mr. Thackeray.

Thackeray owed the opportunity to emerge from his
comparative obscurity to his connection with Punch.
The first number of that famous periodical appeared
on July 17, 1841 ; and soon after, to quote Shirley
Brooks, ''on a good day for himself, the journal, and
the world, Thackeray found Punch.'''' Edward Fitz-
Gerald, in May of the following year, begged Thack-
eray " not to go into Punch yet" ; but fortunately the
latter disregarded this advice — though the advice was
good in so far as the paper at the start had been
ridiculously undercapitalised by the three owners, and
was not on a sound basis until it was taken over by
Messrs. Bradbury and Evans.

Within a few weeks of FitzGerald's warning, in the
issue for June 18, appeared Thackeray's first contribu-
tion, "The Legend of Jawbrahim-Heraudee," a skit
on John Abraham Heraud, a minor poet long since
forgotten, who was once assistant-editor of Frasei's
Magazine. " Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English
History," which until recently were thought to be
Thackeray's earliest work for the paper, did not begin
until a fortnight later. These "Lectures," which
suggested to Gilbert a Beckett and John Leech the
idea of the "Comic History of England" and the

1848] "MISS TICKLETOBY'S LECTURES" 227

** Comic History of Rome," were not regarded by
the proprietors as of value to the paper, and, receiv-
ing a hint of this, Thackeray forthwith discontinued
them.

Your letter containing an enclosure of ^25 has
been forwarded to me, and I am obliged to you
for the remittance [he wrote on September 27, to
Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, from Halverstown,
Kildare, which he was visiting in connection with
''The Irish Sketch Book"]. Mr. Lemon had pre-
viously written to me to explain the delay, and I had
also received a letter from Mr. Landells who told me
what I was sorry to learn, that you were dissatisfied
with my contributions to Punch. I wish that my
writings had the good fortune to please every one,
but all I can do however is to do my best, which has
been done in this case, just as much as if I had been
writing for any more dignified periodical.

But I have no wish to continue the original agree-
ment made between us, as it is dissatisfactory to you,
and possibly injurious to your work ; and shall
gladly cease Mrs. \sic\ Tickletoby's Lectures, hoping
that you will be able to supply her place with some
more amusing and lively correspondent.

I shall pass the winter either in Paris or in
London where very probably I may find some other
matter more suitable to the paper, in which case I
shall make another attempt upon Punch.

Thackeray soon made another attempt upon Punchy
but not for some time with anything so ambitious as
the " Lectures." In 1843 he contributed merely a few
short pieces and some pictorial initial letters, but his
support was recognised as of value and on December 16
he took Albert Smith's place at the Round Table. For
the next ten years he printed in the pages of Punch
most of his best work (except, of course, his novels),

228 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

contributing, with a fine indifference, thumbnail draw-
ings, ballads, parodies, caricatures, political skits,
social satires, even illustrations to other authors' work.

The next year (1844) was not eventful in the history
of Thackeray's connection with Punchy for his chief
contributions were the ''History of the Next French
Revolution" and the Fat Contributor's "Travelling
Notes"; and it was not until Mr. Yellowplush (who
in the meantime had made a fortune by speculating
in railway shares) again took up his pen and, over the
signature of C. Jeames de la Pluche, told the story of
his adventures, that Thackeray was regarded as one
of the principal supporters of the periodical. The first
of the "Jeames Papers" appeared on August 16, 1845,
and the last instalment of the " Diary" on January 31,
1846. The papers were topical in so far as they were
a warning against speculating in railway shares in the
"boom" engineered by Hudson; but, though this
drew attention to them, it was the quaint humour and
social satire that made them so successful that, "A
witless version of his adventures had been produced at
the Princess's Theatre, ' without with your leaf or by
your leaf.' "^

People began to ask who was the author of "Jeames,"
and Thackeray's reputation as a humorist was now
made; but before the impression made by the "Diary"
upon the readers of Punch faded away, indeed in the
number following that containing the last instalment
of the "Diary," began "The Snobs of England,"
which ran week by week until February 27, 1847.
These amusing papers caught the fancy of the public,

^ Punch, January 31, 1845.

i848] "THE SNOBS OF ENGLAND" 229

and again it was asked who was the writer. When
it became known that the author of '* Jeames's Diary"
and of ''The Snobs of England" was one and the
same person, Thackeray was regarded as a person of
considerable importance in literary circles, and began
to taste of the sweets of success. The author never
had any great affection for the ''Snob Papers," and in
later years told Motley he hated them and could not
read a word of them ; but when he was writing the
series he was interested in them, and, because they
sent up the circulation of Punch, he was persuaded to
continue them week by week for a year. It has been
said that Thackeray saw snobbishness everywhere and
in everyone : there is something in this contention,
and colour is given to it by the fact that when "The
Snobs of England " were issued in book-form seven
papers were suppressed by the author, because, he
wrote, " I have found them so stupid, so personal, so
snobbish in a word." Of the philosophy of "The
Book of Snobs" something will presently be said,
but the papers may be read independently of their
purpose, for they contain many delightful passages
instinct with humour. Is there anything better in its way
in any of Thackeray's writings than this conversation
between the Club Snob, Captain Spitfire, r.n. ("who
has been refused a ship by the Whigs, by the way "),
and Mr. Minns, who ever after followed Spitfire about,
thinking him the greatest and wisest of human beings?

"Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at
Lady Palmerston's party, Minns? Because she
can't show — and why can't she show? Shall I tell
you, Minns, why she can't show? The Princess

230 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

Scragamoffsky's back is flayed alive, Minns — I
tell you it's raw, Sir ! On Tuesday last, at twelve
o'clock, three drummers of the Preobajinsk regiment
arrived at Ashburnham House, and at half-past
twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian
Embassy, before the Ambassadress and four ladies'-
maids, the Greek Papa, and the Secretary of Em-
bassy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen
dozen. She was knouted. Sir — knouted in the midst
of England — in Berkeley Square, for having said the
Grand Duchess Olga's hair was red. And Now,
Sir, you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue
Minister?"
Minns: ''Good God !"i

Having at last made a reputation, Thackeray, who
had long since convinced himself of his powers, real-
ised that now, if ever, was the time to lift himself out
of the ranks of the magazine writers, and to make a
supreme effort to take his place as one of the heads of
his calling. " My boy, I think you can write a maga-
zine article, and turn out a pretty copy of verses,"
Warrington is made to say to Pendennis, to which the
latter replies: "By Jove! I'll show you that I am a
better man than you think for." For Pendennis may
be read Thackeray, who was resolved to show the
world there was more in him than it gave him credit
for ; this resolve resulted in the publication in January
1847 of the first number of "Vanity Fair."

A general belief exists to this day that "Vanity Fair"
was hawked round the town, and offered and rejected
here and there, before Messrs. Bradbury and Evans,
the proprietors of Punchy undertook its publication.
Statements to this effect have been made by many

^ The Snobs of England — Club Snobs.

i848] "VANITY FAIR" 231

writers. Anthony Trollope stated that the monthly
nurses of periodical literature did not see their way to
accept "Vanity Fair" as a serial, and that publishers
fought shy of it ; Sir Frank T. Marzials has remarked
that '* ' Vanity Fair ' itself, ' Vanity Fair,' one of the un-
questioned masterpieces of English Literature " was
refused by the New Monthly Magazme ; and Lady
Ritchie speaks of the journeys the manuscript made
to various publishers before it found a firm ready to
undertake the venture. These statements presuppose
that the manuscript was complete, but this was not
the case. The idea of *' Vanity Fair" first came to
Thackeray when he and his wife were living in Great
Coram Street, and there, indeed, the story was begun.

So your poor Titmarsh has made another fiasco
[he wrote early in 1841 to the friend who saw " The
Second Funeral of Napoleon " through the press].
How are we to take the great stupid public by the
ears? Never mind ; I think I have something which
will surprise them yet. ^

This, the recipient of the letter remarks, and none
will dispute, was a reference to "Vanity Fair"; but
Thackeray did not make much progress with the book,
for when, some time within the next four years, he
offered it to Colburn for the New Monthly Magazine^
he had only drafted some chapters, which were shown
to that publisher as the beginning of a story, of which
even the length was not then determined. ^ "Pencil
Sketches of English Society," it was called then, for
the author had not yet thought of the famous title,

' Cor nhill Magazine, January 1866.
"^ J. C. Hotten : Thackeray.

232 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

which occurred to him suddenly in the middle of the
night when he was writing some of the first numbers at
the '' Old Ship " at Brighton. '' I jumped out of bed,"
he told Miss Perry, "and ran three times round my
room, uttering as I went, 'Vanity Fair', 'Vanity
Fair', 'Vanity Fair'!"i

Thackeray's contributions to the JVew Monthly Maga-
zine, with the exception of " Major Gahagan," had not
included any of his best work, and so he was not highly
valued by the publisher, who would have nothing to do
with "Pencil Sketches of English Society." Thackeray
did not abandon the idea of the novel, but he was too
busy writing for the periodicals to spend time on a
work that might not be lucrative ; and it was only after
"The Snobs of England " brought him some degree of
popularity, that he made another, and this time a suc-
cessful, effort to arrange for the publication of the
novel. One day late in 1846 Thackeray called at
Henry Vizetelly's offices in Peterborough Court, and
showed him the manuscript of the first chapters of the
book, and some drawings for it, which he had brought
with him to show Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. " In
little more than half an hour," Vizetelly has recorded
in his autobiography, "Thackeray again made his
appearance, and, with a beaming face, gleefully in-
formed me that he had settled the business. ' Brad-
bury and Evans,' he said, ' accepted so readily that I am
deuced sorry I didn't ask them for another tenner. I
am certain they would have given it.' He then ex-
plained that he had named fifty guineas per part,
including the two sheets of letter-press, a couple of

^ A Collection of Letters of W. M. Thackeray, p. 178.

1848] THE FIRST NUMBER 233

etchings, and the initials at the commencement of the
chapters. He reckoned the text, I remember, at no
more than five-and-twenty shillings a page, the two
etchings at six guineas each, while as for the few initials
at the beginning of the chapters, he threw those in.
Such was Mr. Thackeray's own estimate of his com-
mercial value as an author and engraver, a.d. 1846.
I know perfectly well that after the publication com-
menced much of the remainder of the work was written
under pressure for and from the printer, and not in-
frequently the first instalment of * copy ' needed to fill
the customary thirty-two pages was penned while the
printer's boy was waiting in the hall at Young Street."^
It was arranged that " Vanity Fair," after the manner
of the works of Dickens and Lever, should be pub-
lished in monthly numbers, and that the first should
appear in January 1847. Thackeray, while confident
of the merits of the novel, was, however, anxious as to
its success, and thought an article in Blackwood's
Magazine might help to increase its circulation.

I think [he wrote on January 2 to William Edmon-
stone Aytoun — "Sweeter Piper Edina never knew
than Aytoun, the Bard of the Cavaliers " -J I have
never had any ambition hitherto, or cared whether
the world thought my work good or bad ; but now
the truth forces itself upon me, if the world will once
take to admiring Titmarsh, all his guineas will be
multiplied by ten. Guineas are good. I have got
children, only ten years more to the fore, say, etc.;
now is the time, my lad, to make your A when the
sun at length has begun to shine.

^ Henry Vizetelly : Glances Back through Seventy Years, Vol. I,
pp. 284-5.

"^ On Alexandrines.

234 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

Well, I think if I can make a push at the present
minute — if my friends will shout, Titmarsh for ever !
hurrah for, etc., etc., I may go up with a run to a
pretty fair place in my trade, and be allowed to
appear before the public among the first fiddles.
But my tunes must be heard in the streets, and organs
must grind them. Ha ! Now do you read me?

Why don't Blackwood give me an article ? Because
he refused the best story I ever wrote? [''The
Great Hoggarty Diamond."] Colburn refused the
present " Novel without a Hero," and if any man at
Blackwood's or Colburn's, and if any man since —
fiddle-de-dee. Upon my word and honour I never
said so much about myself before : but I know this, if
I had the command of Blackwood^ and a humouristical
person like Titmarsh should come up, and labour
hard and honestly (please God) for ten years, I would
give him a hand. Now, try, like a man, revolving
these things in your soul, and see if you can't help
me. . . . And if I can but save a little money, by the
Lord ! I'll try and keep it. . . . Between this line
and the above a man has brought me the Times on
*' The Battle of Life." 'Appy Dickens ! But I love
Pickwick and Crummies too much to abuse this
great man. Aliqiiando bonus. And you, young
man, coming up in the world full of fight, take
counsel from a venerable and peaceful old gladiator
who has stripped for many battles. Gad, sir, this
caution is a very good sign. Do you remember how
complimentary Scott and Goethe were? I like the
patriarchal air of some people.^

Thackeray was always willing to help other writers,
when it was possible, by reviewing their books in
Eraser's Magazine or elsewhere ; and his acquaintances
were eager to avail themselves of this assistance.

Don't be displeased at my not reviewing you [he
wrote to Mr. Bedingfield in 1847]. By jove, I have

1 Sir Theodore Martin : Life ofW. E. Aytoun, pp. 132-3.

1848] PROFESSOR AYTOUN 235

not time to do half what I ought to do, and have books
upon books on my table at this minute — all the works
of private friends who want a criticism.

It is one thing to give a puff, however, and another
to ask for it ; and when Thackeray, who had written on
impulse to Aytoun, reflected upon his request, his pride
would not permit that his work should attain success
save directly through its merits.

I have been thinking of the other matter on which
I unbosomed myself to you, and withdraw my former
letter [he wrote to Aytoun on January 13]. Puffs are
good and the testimony of good men ; but I don't
think these will make a success for a man, and he
ought to stand as the public chooses to put him. I
will try, please God, to do my best, and the money
will come, perhaps, some day ! Meanwhile a man so
lucky as myself has no cause to complain. So let all
puffing alone, though, as you know, I am glad if I
can have, and deserve, your good opinion. The
women like '* Vanity Fair," I find, very much, and
the publishers are quite in good spirits regarding
that venture. This is all I have to say — in the soli-
tude of midnight, with a quiet cigar, and the weakest
gin and water in the world, ruminating over a child's
ball, from which I have just come, having gone as
chaperone to my little girls. One of them had her
hair plaited in two tails, the other had ringlets and
the most fascinating bows of blue ribbon. It was very
merry and likewise sentimental. We went in a fly
quite genteel, and law ! what a comfort it was when it
was over. Adyou.^

*' I wonder whether this will take, the publishers
accept it, and the world read it," Thackeray said when
he was writing the early chapters of "Vanity Fair";
and though the publishers accepted, it seemed doubtful

^ Sir Theodore Martin : Life of W. E, Aytoun, p. 134.

236 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

if the world would read it. The first numbers failed to
attract attention, and the question of stopping the
publication was actually mooted. Fortunately, later in
the year, the sale increased by leaps and bounds, and
the success of the venture was assured. There has
been much speculation as to the cause of this change
from failure to brilliant success ; and many reasons
have been suggested. Some have it that the success
resulted from a eulogistic article in the Edinburgh
Review for January, 1S48 ; while others insist that it was
effected by " Currer Bell's" dedication to Thackeray,
prefixed to the second edition of "Jane Eyre."
Thackeray thought the publication of his Christmas
Book " Mrs. Perkins's Ball " had much to do with it.

No doubt the review, the dedication especially, and
the Christmas Book, each and all gave an impetus to
the sale of the novel ; but the simplest and most probable
explanation of the rise in circulation of the shilling
numbers is that the book increases in interest as it goes
on. This was FitzGerald's belief. " Thackeray is pro-
gressing greatly in his line : he publishes a novel in
Nos. — ' Vanity Fair ' — which began dull I thought, but
gets better every number." However, not everyone
found the earlier parts dull. " Don't get nervous or think
about criticism or trouble yourself about the opinions of
friends," Abraham Hayward wrote after two or three
numbers had come out; "you have completely beaten
Dickens out of the inner circle already." And Mrs.
Carlyle wrote in September (1847) to her husband : " I
brought away the last four numbers of 'Vanity Fair,'
and read one of them during the night. Very good
indeed, beats Dickens out of the world."

1848] THE SUCCESS OF "VANITY FAIR" 237

People at this time were accustomed to buy their
fiction in the green and pink covered monthly parts
containing, respectively, the novels of Dickens and
Lever ; and they did not at first take kindly to the less
exciting, though more artistic, sketches of English
society offered in the yellow wrappers. Even during
the time of the greatest success of the monthly issue
of "Vanity Fair," only about 7000 copies of a number
were sold, while the circulation of the parts of Dickens's
novels was frequently so much as 20,000 or 25,000.
Indeed, Thackeray never approached Dickens in the
matter of sales, not even in America where his works
have always been popular. Entering a bookstore in
South Carolina, Thackeray enquired how many copies
of "The Newcomes" had been sold. He was in-
formed that they had taken 300 and that 200 more had
been ordered. He then asked how many copies of
" Bleak House" had been sold ; and was told that the
first order had been for 500, and the repeat order for
600 copies. " I ask these questions wherever I go,"
he said, "and the answers are the same everywhere."
He insisted that five copies of Dickens's books sold for
every one of his.

It is quite conceivable that " Currer Bell's" dedica-
tion (dated December 21, 1847) hastened the general
recognition of the genius of Thackeray ; for the cir-
culation of "Jane Eyre," the book of the year, was
very large. The dedication is interesting, not only
as being characteristic of the writer, but as one of the
first appreciations of Thackeray that appeared in print.
"There is a man in our days whose words are not
framed to tickle delicate ears : who, to my thinking,

238 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

comes before the great ones of society — much as the
son of Imlah comes before the throned Kings of Judah
and Israel ; and who speaks truth as deep, with a
power as prophet-like and as vital — a mien as daunt-
less and as daring. Is the satirist of 'Vanity Fair'
admired in high places? I cannot tell ; but I think if
some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of
his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levinbrand
of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time,
they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-
Gilead. Why have I alluded to this man? I have
alluded to him. Reader, because I think I see in him
an intellect profounder and more unique than his con-
temporaries have yet recognised ; because I regard
him as the first social regenerator of the day — as the
very master of that working corps who would restore
to rectitude the warped system of things ; because I
think no commentator in his writings has yet found
the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly
characterise his talent. They say he is like Fielding ;
they talk of his wit, humour, comic powers. He re-
sembles Fielding, as an eagle does a vulture : Fielding
could swoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does.
His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear
the same relation to his serious genius that lambent
steel lightning playing under the edge of the summer
cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb.
Finally, I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray because to
him — if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger —
I have dedicated this second edition of 'Jane Eyre.' "

After a few numbers of "Vanity Fair" had ap-
peared, it was suggested to Abraham Hayward that

i848] HAYWARD'S EULOGY 239

he should write about the novel in the Edinburgh
Review ; but, though willing to do so, he was so busy
that he would not bind himself to write the paper :
thereupon Mrs. Procter undertook to mark passages
that might be usefully quoted ; and at last Hayward
consented, basing the review upon the notes supplied
to him. There can be no doubt of the service Hayward
rendered. The article is on the whole appreciative,
though here and there it seems as if the reviewer had
been afraid that his enthusiasm was too great. " Full
many a valuable truth has been sent undulating
through the air by men who have lived and died un-
known," he wrote. ''At the present moment the
rising generation are supplied with the best of their
mental aliment by writers whose names are a dead letter
to the mass ; and among the most remarkable of these
is Michael Angelo Titmarsh, alias William Make-
peace Thackeray. ... A writer with such a pen as
Mr. Thackeray's is an acquisition of real and high
value in our literature. High life, middle life, and
low life are (or very soon will be) pretty nearly the
same to him ; he has fancy as well as feeling : he can
laugh or cry without grimacing : he can skim the
surface, and he can penetrate to the core. Let the
public give him encouragement, and let him give him-
self time, and we can fearlessly prophesy that he will
soon become one of the acknowledged heads of his
own peculiar walk of literature. . . . 'Vanity Fair' is
assured of immortality as ninety-nine hundredths of
modern novels are sure of annihilation."

It was after the publication of "Vanity Fair" that

240 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

the charge of cynicism first suggested by " The Second
Funeral of Napoleon " was seriously, and for so many
years persistently, brought against Thackeray, though
it was left for Edmund Yates eleven years later to
declare that the novelist "wrote himself 'cynic' — for
it pays." To-day, however, Thackeray's admirers are
more concerned to defend their literary hero against the
charge of sentimentalism than against that of cynicism,
yet so often has the latter accusation been repeated,
that it is impossible altogether to ignore it. Thackeray
smarted under the indictment: "They call the man
who wrote that a cyiiic" he exclaimed one evening,
when he had read to some young men "The Curate's
Walk " ; and those who understand him can detect the
ring of bitterness in his voice as he asks :

Are authors affected by their own works ? I don't
know about other gentlemen, but if I make a joke
myself I cry ; if I am writing a pathetic scene, I am
laughing wildly all the time — at least Tomkins thinks
so. You know I am such a cynic.^

Is the man a cynic who wrote continually in the
following strain?

We advance in simplicity and honesty as we ad-
vance in civilisation, and it is my belief that we
become better bred and less artificial, and tell more
truth every day.^

Thanks be to Heaven, there are good Samaritans
in pretty large numbers in the world, and hands
ready enough to succour a man in misfortune.^

1 On a Peal of Bells.

^ Mr. Brown's Letters — Brown the Younger at a Club,

* Philip, chap. xxi.

1848] THE CHARGE OF CYNICISM 241

Is the man a cynic who, waxing satirical at the pomp
of the second funeral of Napoleon, becomes tender at
the thought of the mother spending a few of her hard-
earned sous on a wreath for the little child's grave ; or
he who, growling at cringing Nudgit, smiles approval
of the quiet independence of Goldsworthy ?^ But if it
be cynical to believe that

Wherever shines the sun you are sure to find
Folly basking in it ; and Knavery is the shadow at
Folly's heels ; -

if it be cynical to declare that grief for a departed
relative will not last for ever, or that if the deceased
leave you a fortune you will, after the first pangs are
over in some degree, be more reconciled to the loss,
why, if these truisms be cynicisms, then, but then only,
Thackeray was a cynic.

If it is difficult to take this charge seriously, the
statement which often accompanies it, that in Thack-
eray's eyes all was vanity, though equally indefensible,
cannot be so lightly dismissed, for it opens up the
question of Thackeray's philosophy. Thackeray looked
upon the world with eyes that saw more than is vouch-
safed to the sight of most men ; and from an early age
he saw humbug writ large in many things which less
clear-minded persons took in good faith.

I read the other day in the papers — Hier S.M. a
envoye complimenter V Anihassadeur de V Autriche sur
la mort du Due de Reichstadt [he wrote to his mother
from Paris just after he came of age]. It is as fine
a text for a sermon as any in the Bible — this poor
young man dying, as many say, of poison, and

1 Mr. Bro7V7i's Letters — Brown the Yotaiger at a Club.
^ Captain Rook ayid Mr. PigeoJi.
I. — R

242 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

L(ouis) P(hilippe) presenting his compliments on
the occasion. Oh, Genius, Glory, Ambition, what
ought you to learn from this? and what might I not
teach, only I am hungry and going — to breakfast ! ^

In this letter may be detected some of the germs
from which sprang the feeling that in later days in-
spired him to preach his weekday sermons against
pride of purse, and birth, and place, against
haughtiness, and against those who meanly admire
mean things.

I am sick of Court Circulars. I loathe haut-ton
intelligence. I believe such words as Fashionable,
Exclusive, Aristocratic, and the like to be wicked
epithets, that ought to be banished from honest
vocabularies. A court system that sends men of \
genius to the second table I hold to be a Snobbish
system. A Society that sets up to be polite, and
ignores Art and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish
Society. You, who despise your neighbour, are a
Snob ; you, who forget your friends, meanly to
follow after those of higher degree, are a Snob ;
you, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush
for your calling, are a Snob ; as you who boast
of your pedigree, or are proud of your wealth.^

From the novelist the reader has no right to demand ;
more than a well-written or interesting tale, but from
the satirist he expects more than a story. Thackeray
has outlined the aims of the school of authors of which
he was so prominent a disciple.

The humorous writer professes to awaken and
direct your love, your pity, your kindness — your
scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture — your
tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed,

' Merivale and Marzials : Thackeray, p. 93.
- The Snobs of England, chapter last.

1848] THACKERAY'S SERMON 243

the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability-
he comments on all the ordinary actions and passions
of life almost. He takes upon himself to be the
weekday preacher, so to speak. ^

What, then, we naturally ask, was the text from

which Thackeray preached ? and the answer is to be

found in the verses he wrote when he had come to fifty

years.

O Vanity of Vanities,

How wayward the decrees of Fate are ;
How very weak the very wise,

How very small the very great are !

What mean these stale moralities,

Sir Preacher, from your desk you mumble ?

Why rail against the great and wise.

And tire us with your ceaseless grumble ?

Pray choose us out another text,
O man morose and narrow-minded !

Come turn the page — I read the next.
And then the next, and still I find it.

Read here how Wealth aside was thrust,

And Folly set in place exalted ;
How Princes footed in the dust

While lacqueys in the saddle vaulted.

Though thrice a thousand years are past
Since David's son, the sad and splendid,

The weary King Ecclesiast,

Upon his awful tablets penned it, —

Methinks the text is never stale.

And life is every day renewing
Fresh comments on the old old tale

Of Folly, Fortune, Glory, Ruin.^

^ English Humourists — Swift. - Vanitas Vanitatum.

244 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

There, in small compass, is the sermon that Thackeray
preached day by day from his pulpit. The world
seemed to him a sad place, more melancholy than
mirthful ; and even when in his great prose epic he
gives his hero his wish,

Oh ! Vanitas Vanitatiim ! [he cries] Which of us ,
is happy in this world? which of us has his desire?
or, having it, is satisfied?^

Though, it will be seen, he went freely into society,
and took his full share of the pleasures of the world, he
passed through life a spectator — as someone put it
happily, a dignified Dobbin in the larger Vanity Fair
— bewailing the faults and follies of mankind, and
roused only from the tender chiding of his fellows when
he saw a man bullying a woman, a woman taking
advantage of her weakness to belabour a man, or any
one person taking unfair advantage of another.

People there are living and flourishing in the
world . . . with no reverence except for prosperity,
and no eye for anything beyond success — faithless,
hopeless, charityless. Let us have at them, dear
friends, with might and main.-

To Thackeray all was not vanity. "He could not|
have painted 'Vanity Fair' as he has unless Eden:
had been in his inner eye," George Brimley has written;]
and it is certain that Thackeray was the first to respect|
and bow down before such qualities as virtue, simplicity,
bravery, and unselfishness. When the Rev. Joseph |
Sortain sent a volume of his sermons to the novelist,,
the latter, writing in acknowledgment of the gift, enun-|
ciated his aims as a writer.

^ Vanity Fair. ^ Ibid,

i848] HIS AIM AS A WRITER 245

I shall value your book very much, not only as the
work of the most accomplished orator I have ever
heard in my life, but, if you will let me so take it, as
a token of good-will and interest on your part in my
own literary pursuits [he wrote on May 15, 1850]. I
want, too, to say, in my way, that, love and truth
are the greatest of Heaven's commandments and
blessings to us ; that the best of us, the many espe-
cially who pride themselves on their virtue most, are
wretchedly weak, vain and selfish ; and to preach
such a charity at least as a common sense of our
shame and unworthiness might inspire, to us poor
people. I hope men of my profession do no harm,
who talk this doctrine out of doors to people in
drawing-rooms and in the world. Your duty in
church takes them a step higher, that awful step
beyond ethics which leads you up to God's revealed
truth. What a tremendous responsibility his is who
has that mystery to explain ! What a boon the faith
which makes it clear to him ! ^

Five years later, when "The Newcomes " was
attacked by the Times for its ''morality and religion,"
he invited Whitwell Elwin to defend him in the
Quarterly Review.

With regard to religion, I think, please God, my
books are written by a God-loving man, and the
morality — the vanity of success, etc., of all but love
and goodness, — is not that the teaching Domini
nostri?'^

In " Vanitas Vanitatum," quoted above, Thackeray
perhaps puts forth the more depressing side of his
creed, and it is to another set of verses that the student
of his philosophy must turn to see the bright side.
In " The End of the Play " Thackeray tells

' Memorials of the Rev. Joseph Sortain.

* Whitwell Elwin : Some Eighteenth Century Men of Letters.

246 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

. . . how fate may change and shift ;

The prize be sometimes with the fool,

The race not always to the swift.

The strong may yield, the good may fall,

The great man be a vulgar clown.

The knave be lifted over all,

The kind cast pitilessly down ;

but, he preached,

Come wealth or want, come good or ill.
Let young and old accept their part,
And bow before the Awful Will,
And bear it with an honest heart.
Who misses, or who wins the prize ?
Go, lose or conquer as you can :
But if you fail, or if you rise.
Be each, pray God, a gentleman.

It has been said, and with truth, that Thackeray
preached from the text that the wisdom of this world is
foolishness with God ; and this undoubtedly was one
of the articles of his creed. There was, however, another
in which he believed with his whole heart, and this is
best summed up in the words of Jeremy Taylor : "Love
is the greatest thing that God can give us : for Himself
is Love, and it is the greatest thing we can give to
God ; for it will also give ourselves, and carry with it
all that is ours."

Do your duty, he wrote again and again, do your
duty with an honest heart, be truthful, be natural, be
humble, be charitable. His love of good and contempt
of evil is clearly to be discerned in his books, but espe-
cially in "The Newcomes"; and in every story he
wrote he preached the gospel of love.

1848] THACKERAY'S WOMEN 247

I cannot help telling the truth as I view it, and
describing what I see. To describe it otherwise than
it seems to me would be falsehood in that calling in
which it has pleased Heaven to place me ; treason to
that conscience which says that men are weak ; that
truth must be told ; that faults must be owned ; that
pardon must be prayed for ; and that Love reigns
supreme over all.^

In that passage is contained the teaching of Thack-
eray's life and the epitome of his weekday sermons.

Many bitter attacks have been made upon Thack-
eray, not only on account of his philosophy but also on
account of his characters. Mrs. Jameson declared that
every woman resents the selfish and inane Amelia in
** Vanity Fair," and regards Laura in " Pendennis "
as yet a more fatal mistake ; while Lady Castlewood
arouses her anger in no measured degree. ''The
virtuous woman, par excellence^ who ' never sins and
never forgives ' ; who never resents, nor relents, nor
repents ; the mother who is the rival of her daughter ;
the mother who for years is the confidante of a man's
delirious passion for her own child, and then consoles
him by marrying him herself ! O Mr. Thackeray, this
will never do ! " Charlotte Bronte thought Thackeray
"unjust to women — quite unjust"; and Harriet Mar-
tineau thought that "the first drawback in his books,
as in his manners, is the impression conveyed by both
that he can never have known a good and sensible
woman." Even as Mrs. Henry Potts could scarcely
find a good woman in Shakespeare's plays, so Mr.
Frederic Harrison finds it an effort of memory to
recall the generous and fine natures in Thackeray, and

' Charity and Humour.

248 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

he complains that all the lovable and affectionate men
and women have qualities which lower them and tend
to make them either tiresome or ridiculous. Mr. Har-
rison says that Esmond is a high-minded, almost heroic,
gentleman, but glum, a regular kill-joy, and some-
thing of a prig ; that Colonel Newcome is a noble-
hearted soldier, but too good for this world, and some-
what too innocent, too transparently a child of nature ;
that Warrington, with all his sense and honesty, is
rough ; that Pendennis is a bit of a puppy ; that Clive
Newcome is not much of a hero ; that Dobbin is almost
intended to be a butt. ' ' A more serious defect is a dearth
in Thackeray of women to love and honour," he adds.
"Though he has given us over and over again living
pictures of women of power, intellect, with charm, they
are all marred by atrocious selfishness, cruelty, ambi-
tion, like Becky Sharp, Beatrix Esmond, and Lady
Kew ; or else they have some weakness, silliness, or
narrowness, which prevents us from at once loving and
respecting them. Amelia is rather a poor thing, and
decidedly silly ; we do not really admire Laura Pen-
dennis ; the Little Sister is somewhat colourless ; Ethel
Newcome runs great risk of being a spoilt beauty ; and
about Lady Castlewood, with all her love and devotion,
there hangs a certain sinister and unnatural taint which
the world cannot forgive, and perhaps ought not to
forgive."

There is this amount of truth in all these adverse com-
ments, that Thackeray created no heroes or heroines.
He knew that human nature, or at least that section of
it that reads novels, cries out for sentiment, for pretty
ladies and gallant gentlemen making love in the most

1848] ON HEROES AND HEROINES 249

romantic manner under the most romantic circum-
stances.

Yott would have the heroine of your novel so beau-
tiful that she would charm the captain (or hero, who-
ever he may be) with her appearance ; surprise and
confound the bishop with her learning ; outride the
Squire and get the brush, and, when he fell from his
horse, whip out a lancet and bleed him ; rescue from
fever and death the poor cottager's family whom the
doctor had given up ; make twenty-one at the butts
with the rifle, when the poor captain only scored
eighteen ; give him twenty in fifty at billiards and
beat him ; and draw tears from the professional Italian
people by her exquisite performance (of voice and
violoncello) in the evening — I say, if a novelist would
be popular with ladies — the great novel-readers of
the world — this is the sort of heroine who would carry
him through half-a-dozen editions.

To this desire Thackeray would not pander, for he
held it his duty to present the world and the people in
it as he saw them ; and, though no man liked popu-
larity better, he was not content to purchase it at the
price of his literary conscience.

Since the author of "Tom Jones" was buried, no
writer of fiction among us has been permitted to
depict to his utmost power a MAN [he said, in the
preface to " Pendennis "]. We must drape him, and
give him a certain conventional simper. Society
will not tolerate the Natural in our Art. Many ladies
have remonstrated and subscribers left me because,
in the course of the story, I described a young man
resisting and affected by temptation. My object was
to sa.y that he had the passions to feel, and the manli-
ness and generosity to overcome them. You will not
hear — it is best not to know it — what moves in the
real world, what passes in society, in the clubs,
colleges, messrooms, — what is the life and talk of

250 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

your sons. A little more frankness than is customary
has been attempted in this story, with no bad desire
on the writer's part, it is hoped, and with no ill
consequence to any reader. If truth is not always
pleasant, at any rate truth is best, from whatever
chair — from those whence grave writers or thinkers
argue as from that at which the story-teller sits as he
concludes his labour and bids his kind reader fare-
well.

The mistake into which many critics of Thackeray
have fallen is one of thinking that the author intended
to make his principal characters heroes and heroines ;
whereas he presented them merely as men and women
whom the reader must like or dislike according to his
tastes. He declared that he disliked everybody in
"Vanity Fair " except Dobbin and Amelia.

Our Friend is not Amadis or Sir Charles Grandison
[he said of Philip Firmin] ; and I don't set him up
for a moment as a person to be revered or imitated,
but try to draw him faithfully and as Nature made
him.

On the other hand, if no man or woman in Thackeray's
books is perfect, all are human. There is no utterly
unredeemed scoundrel in any of his books : Sir Francis
Clavering is so weak that pity rather than hatred is his
portion ; and Dr. Firmin's moral standpoint is so per-
verted that, like Barry Lyndon, he never realises, and
could not be brought to realise, his immorality ; even
Lord Steyne, debauched old man as he is, is not without
feeling, since he can sympathise with Major Pendennis's
distress about Arthur — perhaps Tufton Hunt is the
worst man Thackeray ever drew. If Thackeray has not
joined pure goodness to pure intellect, if he has not

1848] HIS CHARACTERS 251

combined in one person the strength of intellect of a
Becky and the goodness of an Amelia, or the nobility
of a Henry Esmond or a Thomas Newcome with the
brilliance of an Arthur Pendennis, it was certainly not
because he could not do so, or because he was in-
capable of appreciating a perfect man or woman, but
because such folk are rarely, if ever, met with in the
world.

How many novelists are there who have created
such a gallery of characters as can be collected from
Thackeray's stories? Mrs. Peggy O'Dowd, "Jos"
Sedley, Lord Steyne, Becky, Dobbin, and the members
of the Crawley family ; Major Pendennis, Captain
Costigan, "the Fotheringay" Bows, Morgan the
valet, Altamont, Strong, Mirobolant, Blanche Amory,
Foker, Warrington, Fanny Bolton, old Pendennis the
apothecary ; Beatrix, Lady Castlewood and her hus-
band ; Colonel Newcome, Fred Bayham, Charles
Honeyman, Madame de Florae. . . . The list might
be extended almost indefinitely. What admirable
character-drawing ! what insight into men and women !
To describe people so truly, so minutely, so humanly
and so humanely, too, as he has done, requires the
unfettered genius of a broad-minded man. Someone
has said that to provide an author for "The Egoist"
God had first to create a gentleman, and then give him
genius ; could there be a better basis upon which to
build a criticism of Thackeray's work?

It is not only Thackeray's philosophy that has been
attacked, and his character that has been subjected to
adverse criticism, but there have been and still are
writers who refuse to allot to his works a high place in

252 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

the realms of literature. Matthew Arnold did not
think him a great writer, though he was impelled to
admit, *'at any rate, his style is that of one" ; all that
Ruskin had to say of Thackeray (in '' Fors Clavigera")
is that ^'Thackeray settled like a meat-fly on whatever
one had for dinner, and made one sick of it " ; and
to-day, though depreciation of the novelist comes
mainly from the decadent school, yet only a few months
since one of the most brilliant of the younger novelists
stated that he had nothing to learn from Thackeray or
Dickens.

It is, of course, easy to point out Thackeray's faults
as a novelist. He was often careless ; he would kill
a character in one chapter and bring him to life again
a hundred pages further on, and commit a score of such
blunders ; and he would often interrupt the narrative
to give tongue to his own reflections. ''And there is a
sermon, and a great deal of love and affection from
Papa," he concluded a letter to his daughters ; and the
same remark applies to his books.

Perhaps of all the novel-spinners now extant, the
present speaker is most addicted to preaching. Does
he not stop perpetually in his story and begin to
preach to you ? When he ought to be engaged with
business, is he not for ever taking the Muse by the
sleeve, and plaguing her with some of his cynical
sermons? I cry peccavi loudly and heartily. I tell
you I would like to be able to write a story which
should show no egotism whatever — in which there
should be no reflections, no cynicism, no vulgarity
(and so forth), but an incident in every other page, a
villain, a battle, a mystery in every chapter.

When Allingham said to Thackeray that a certain

1848] HIS METHOD OF WRITING 253

story of Dickens might be improved by a man of
good taste with a pencil in his hand, by merely scoring
out this and that, "Young man," interrupted Thack-
eray, affecting an Irish brogue, "you're threading on
the tail o' me coat. What you've just said applies
very much to your humble servant's things." Where-
upon Allingham and Father Prout protested there
was not a line too much in Thackeray's novels,^ and,
as regards the best works of the author, the protest is
true. It would be a dangerous precedent for any
writer to follow, but in Thackeray's case, had the story
been strictly adhered to, the books would have been
less fascinating ; it is the digressions, the personal
touches, the little weekday sermons, that invest the
novels with much of their charm^ — " Like the songs of
the chorus," says Mr. Andrew Lang, "they bid us
pause a moment over the wider laws and actions of
human fate and human life."

These exquisite interpolations were certainly in part
due to Thackeray's want of method in the construction
of his novels. He wrote, as it were, by instinct.

My Pegasus won't fly so as to let me survey the
field below me. He has no wings ; he is blind of
one eye certainly ; he is restive, stubborn, slow ;
crops a hedge when he ought to be galloping, or
gallops when he ought to be quiet. He will never
show off when I want him. Sometimes he goes at
a pace which surprises me. Sometimes, when I
most wish him to make the running, the brute turns
restive. I am obliged to let him take his time.

His plan was to create mentally two or three of the
principal characters, and then to write on from number

1 William Allingham : Diary, p. 78.

254 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

to number, with only a general notion of the course
he would be taking a few chapters later. " I don't
control my characters," he told Cordy Jeaffreson ; ''I
am in their hands, and they take me where they
please."

I have been surprised at the observations made by
some of my characters [he wrote in a " Roundabout
Paper."] It seems as if an occult power was moving
the pen. The personage does or says something,
and I ask, " How the dickens did he come to think
of that?"

Thus, when someone remonstrated with him for
having made Esmond marry "his mother-in-law," he
replied, with a laugh, ''/didn't make him do it; they
did it themselves." When Whitwell Elwin, suspect-
ing Thackeray wrote by a sort of instinct, without
marking the full import of his narrative, said to him,
"There is probably more in your novels than you are
aware of," "Yes," replied the novelist, "I have no
idea where it all comes from. I have never seen the
persons I describe, nor heard the conversations I put
down. I am often astonished to read it myself when
I have got it down on paper. "^ His characters, none
the less, were very real to him. He was so affected by
the death of Helen Pendennis that he was found in
tears. "I wonder what will happen to Pendennis
and Fanny Bolton," he wrote to Mrs. Brookfield ;
"writing and sending it to you, it seems as if it were
true." He told the same correspondent how on a con-
tinental trip he had been to the Hotel de la Terrasse

^ Whitwell Elwin: Some Eighteenth Centziry Men of Letters, Vol. I,
P- 155-

1848] HIS STYLE 255

where Becky used to stay and had passed by Captain
Osborne's lodgings. "I believe perfectly in all the
people" he added, "and feel quite an interest in the
inn in which they lived."

Thackeray's style was founded upon the masters of
the eighteenth century, and in this respect his books
bear comparison with Addison and Fielding and
Steele. Yet his style, which was born with him and
is visible in his early writings, was almost wholly
original. "It is more like the result of thinking aloud
than the style of any other writer," Professor Saints-
bury has put it happily. " But it is also more than
this. The writer thinks for himself and for ' the other
fellow' — for an imaginary interlocutor who makes
objections, spies the ludicrous side of what has been
said, and so on."^

Very clear is every passage Thackeray wrote, and
none can fail to grasp the meaning of his every line.
That, indeed, was the object he always kept before him.
"The great thing is to make no sentence without
a meaning to it," he said ; and he would rewrite pages
of manuscript, substituting simpler words for longer
ones. Few writers have revised their work more care-
fully ; and even after the novels were published, when
a new edition was called for, the author carefully ex-
amined every page, and made many alterations, both
trivial and important.

Thackeray hated enthusiastic writing, but he could
rise to almost any scene. There are few passages in

1 Introduction to the Oxford Edition of Thackeray's Works, Vol. I,
p. xxxi.

256 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-
English fiction more tender than the last parting of
George Osborne and Amelia.

George came in and looked at her again, entering
still more softly. By the pale night-lamp he could
see her sweet, pale face — the purple eye-lids were
fringed and closed, and one round arm, smooth and
white, lay outside the coverlet. Good God ! how
pure she was ; how gentle, how tender, and how
friendly ! And he, how selfish, brutal, and black
with crime ! Heart-stained and shame-stricken, he
stood at the bed's foot, and looked at the sleeping
girl. How dared he — who was he, to pray for one
so spotless ! God bless her ! God bless her ! He
came to the bedside and looked at the hand, the little
soft hand, lying asleep ; and he bent over the pillow
noiselessly towards the gentle, pale face. Two fair
arms closed tenderly round his neck as he stooped
down. " I am awake, George," the poor child said,
with a sob fit to break the little heart that nestled so
closely by his own.^

A few days later the foolish, weak young man died
fighting for his country.

No more firing was heard at Brussels — the pursuit
rolled miles away. The darkness came down on the
field and city : and Amelia was praying for George,
who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through
his heart. -^

Thackeray never wrote anything finer than the
Waterloo chapters of "Vanity Fair," though very
beautifully described are the deaths of Helen Pendennis
and Colonel Newcome ; and it is necessary to go to
" Esmond " to find passages so exquisite. It is hard
to find anything to surpass that speech of Lady Castle-
wood to the Duke of Hamilton, which begins,

1 Vanity Fair, chap. xxix. '^ Ibid., chap, xxxii.

I

i848] "ESMOND" 257

My daughter may receive presents from the Head
of our House : my daughter may thankfully take
kindness from her father's, her mother's, her brother's
dearest friend ; and be grateful for one more benefit
besides the thousands we owe him. ^

Yet, as is the case with all Thackeray's books, one fine
scene conjures up memories of many others, and in
** Esmond" there is the interview in which the hero and
young Castlewood repudiate the Pretender, and, earlier
in the story, the welcome extended to her dear Harry
by Lady Castlewood on his home-coming a year after
the Viscount's death.

*' I knew you would come back . . . and to-day,
Henry, in the anthem, when they sang it, ' When
the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like
them that dream,' I thought, yes, like them that
dream — them that dream. And then it went, ' They
that sow in tears shall reap in joy ; and he that goeth
forth and weepeth, shall doubtless come home again
with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him ' ; I
looked up from the book and saw you. I was not
surprised when I saw you. I knew you would come,
my dear, and saw the gold sunshine round your
head. . . . Do you know what day it is ? . . . It
is the 29th of December — it is your birthday ! But
last year we did not drink it, — no, no. My lord was
cold, and my Harry was likely to die : and my brain
was in a fever ; and we had no wine. But now —
now you are come again, bringing your sheaves with
you, my dear." She burst into a wild flood of
weeping as she spoke ; she laughed and sobbed on
the young man's heart, crying out wildly, ** bringing
your sheaves with you — your sheaves with you ! " "^

Only one further quotation may be allowed, and this
shall be the description of Esmond's visit to his mother's

^ Esmond, Book III, chap. iv. ^ Ibid., Book II, chap, vi,
I.— S

258 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

grave in the convent cemetery at Brussels, the finest
piece of word-painting that Thackeray ever penned.

Esmond came to this spot in one sunny evening of
spring, and saw, amidst a thousand black crosses,
casting their shadows across the grassy mounds, that
particular one which marked his mother's resting-
place. Many more of those poor creatures that
lay there had adopted that same name, with which
sorrow had rebaptised her, and which fondly seemed
to hint their individual story of love and grief. He
fancied her, in tears and darkness, kneeling at the
foot of her cross, under which her cares were buried.
Surely he knelt down, and said his own prayer there,
not in sorrow so much as in awe (for even his memory
had no recollection of her), and in pity for the pangs
which the gentle soul in life had been made to suffer.
To this cross she brought them ; for this heavenly
bridegroom she exchanged the husband who had
wooed her, the traitor who had left her. A thousand
such hillocks lay round about, the gentle daisies
springing out of the grass over them, and each
bearing its cross and requiescat. A nun, veiled in
black, was kneeling hard by, at a sleeping sister's
bedside (so fresh made, that the spring had scarce
had time to spin a coverlid for it) ; beyond the
cemetery walls you had glimpses of life and the *
world, and the spires and gables of the city. A w
bird came down from a roof opposite, and lit first on
a cross, and then on the grass below it, whence it
flew away presently with a leaf in its mouth : then
came a sound as of chanting, from the chapel of the
sisters hard by : others had long since filled the place
which poor Mary Magdaleine once had there, were
kneeling at the same stall, and hearing the same
hymns and prayers in which her stricken heart had
found consolation. Might she sleep in peace — might
she sleep in peace ; and we, too, when our struggles
and pains are over ! But the earth is the Lord's, as
the Heaven is ; we are alike his creatures, here and
yonder. I took a little flower off the hillock, and

i848] A CLASSICAL AUTHOR 259

kissed it, and went my way, like the bird that had
just lighted on the cross by me, back into the world
again. Silent receptacle of death ! tranquil depth of
calm, out of reach of tempest and trouble ! I felt as
one who had been walking below the sea, and treading
amidst the bones of shipwrecks.^

Thackeray once declared frankly that he wished to
rank as a classical author. His desire has been fully
realised. To-day his name stands for culture and high
intelligence, for delicate humrour and exquisite pathos ;
for great understanding of the inner workings of the
minds of men and women ; for literary style and for
pure nervous undefiled English. As the author of
"Barry Lyndon", "Vanity Fair", " Pendennis,"
"Esmond," and the "Roundabout Papers," he has
taken his place among the greatest writers of the nine-
teenth century, and, indeed, in the history of English
fiction he ranks second only to Henry Fielding.

^ Esmond, Book II, chap. xiii.

CHAPTER XIV

IN SOCIETY

Thackeray lionised by society — his amusement at being so treated —
applause an incentive to him — society provides material for his
writings — speech-making — his "smash" at a Literary Fund Dinner —
and at Manchester — his speech at the banquet given on his departure
for America, 1855 — his belief that practice in speaking would enable
him to express his opinions in the House of Commons — charged with
tuft-hunting — the disadvantages of success — he loses old friends —
much improved by success — tributes by Albert Smith, John HoUings-
head, Frederick Locker-Lampson, Henry Vizetelly, Dr, John Brown
and the Rev. Whitwell Elwin — attacks on him — his moods — Mrs. J. T.
Fields' opinion of him — his chanty — and his kindness — interests him-
self in Louis Marvy and others — his shyness — and his occasional
savagery — his sense of fun — his conversation — some bans mots and
impromptus — sadness the keynote to his character.

EVEN before the last numbers of "Vanity-
Fair " were published, Thackeray had be-
come a personage, and his tall figure and
massive head became a familiar sight in the ;
dining-rooms and drawing-rooms of society.

There is no more dangerous or stupefying position
for a man in life than to be a cock of a small society
[he wrote about this time]. It prevents his ideas
from growing ; it renders him intolerably conceited.
A twopenny-halfpenny Cssar, a Brummagem dandy,
a coterie philosopher or wit, is pretty sure to be an
ass ; and, in fine, I lay it down as a maxim that it is
good for a man to live where he can meet his betters,
intellectual and social.^

^ Air. Broivn's Letters — On Friendship.
260

A SOCIAL LION 261

Thackeray liked society and felt at home in it ; but
for a long time he was amused, though certainly not
displeased, at the idea of being a great man. "This
is true fame," he exclaimed gleefully, on receiving an
anonymous present of half a dozen bottles of a fine old
brandy ; and he was greatly flattered and much moved
when Turgueneff called on him without any introduc-
tion, simply in the character of a foreign admirer of
his works, and without saying a word about his own
literary position. At most other tributes, however, he
was inclined to smile, being essentially a humble-
minded man, and rather astonished at the fuss the
world was beginning to make about him.^

"I doubt whether Thackeray will be much the
happier for his success," his old friend, Monckton
Milnes, wrote in May 1849, 'though I think people
generally are for satisfied ambition." Applause, how-
ever, was to Thackeray a glorious incentive. It was
what had been wanting during the many years of his
struggles ; and, now it had come, instead of inclining
him to retire on his laurels, it acted as a spur to further
effort. Carlyle surmised that since Thackeray had taken
to cultivate dinner-eating in fashionable houses, his
work would suffer ; and perhaps it would have been
better for Thackeray if (as with a trifle of exaggera-
tion he told Lady Blessington) he had not "reeled
from dinner party to dinner party, wallowed in turtle,
and swum in claret and champagne." On the other
hand, society was useful and necessary to him. "A
social painter must be of the world which he depicts,
and native to the manners he portrays," he wrote, when

^ H. Sutherland Edwards : Recollections, p. 37.

262 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

comparing the accuracy of Leech's drawings with the
many mistakes of Gillray. ''If I don't go out and
mingle in society, I can't write," he confided to Mrs.
Bedingfield. He makes a speech at a Literary Fund
Dinner and breaks down : "Of what I said I have not
the slightest idea," he told Mrs. Brookfield ; " but the
discomfiture will make a good chapter for ' Pendennis. ' "
He goes to a Sybaritic repast at Spencer Cowper's, and
sees a chapter or two in some of the guests. It is all a
matter of temperament. Carlyle could probably not
have written at all if he had dined out regularly : to
Thackeray society was as the breath of his nostrils.
"He was a man of sensibility," Locker-Lampson has
recorded; "he delighted in luxuriously furnished and
well-lighted rooms, good music, excellent wines and
cookery, exhilarating talk, gay and airy gossip, pretty
women and their toilettes, and refined and noble
manners, le bon gout, le ris, raimahle liberie! The
amenities of life and the traditions stimulated his
imagination."^

There is no doubt Thackeray enjoyed being lion-
ised ; but there was one serious drawback : being a
prominent personage in literature and society, he had
to take the share in speech-making at banquets that
falls to the lot of those who have raised themselves
above their fellows. Though a finished lecturer,
Thackeray was at his worst when he attempted to
deliver a speech to a large audience. At the Shake-
speare dinners at the Garrick Club and on similar
occasions when he felt more or less at home it was not
so bad : but elsewhere he was terribly self-conscious,

^ My CoTifidenceSj p, 304.

AS A PUBLIC SPEAKER 263

and suffered agonies of nervousness before the hour
arrived. The failure itself was not so bad as the
anticipation of it, and he could quite light-heartedly
laugh at himself when the ordeal was over.

Thackeray, when the ''smash" came, as it usually
did after the first few sentences of his carefully prepared
speech, would sit down so calmly, with such a look of
amused bewilderment, that the audience always gave
him a kindly smile. Once he made Fields travel with
him to Manchester to hear the speech he was going to
make at the founding of the Free Library Institution in
that city. "All the way down," Fields has recorded,
" he was discoursing of certain effects he intended to pro-
duce on the Manchester doges by his eloquent appeals
to their pockets. This passage was to have great influ-
ence with the rich merchants, this one with the clergy,
and so on. He said that although Dickens, and Bul-
wer, and Sir James Stephen — all eloquent speakers —
were to precede him, he intended to beat each of them
on this special occasion. He insisted that I should be
seated directly in front of him so that I should have the
full force of his magic eloquence. . . . Sir John Potter,
who presided, then rose, and after some complimentary
allusions to the author of ' Vanity Fair,' introduced him
to the crowd, who received him with ringing plaudits.
As he rose, he gave me a half-wink from under his
spectacles, as if to say, ' Now for it ; the others have
done very well, but I will show 'em a grace beyond the
reach of their art.' He began in a clear and charming
manner, and was absolutely perfect for three minutes.
In the midst of a most earnest and elaborate sentence
he suddenly stopped, gave a look of comic despair at

264 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

the ceiling, crammed both hands into his trousers
pockets, and deliberately sat down. . . . He continued
to sit on the platform in a perfectly composed manner ;
and when the meeting was over, he said to me, without
a sign of discomfiture, ' My boy, you have accidentally
missed hearing one of the finest speeches ever com-
posed for delivery by a great British orator.'"^ To
this occasion he referred in a letter to his youngest
daughter :

Last week I was away at Manchester when I broke
down in a speech before three thousand ladies and
gentlemen. I felt very foolish, but I tried again at
night, and did better ; and as there is nothing more
wicked in breaking down in a speech than in slipping
on a bit of orange-peel and breaking one's nose, why,
I got up again, and made another speech at night
without breaking down. It is all custom, and most
people can no more do it than they can play the piano
without learning.

When George Hodder was acting as Thackeray's
secretary, one morning he found the great man still in
bed and complaining of a restless night. " I'm sorry
you do not seem very well this morning," Hodder said.
" Wei/,'' the unhappy novelist murmured ; " no, I am
not well. I have got to make that confounded speech
to-night" (at the annual dinner of the General Theatrical
Fund)." '' Don't let that trouble you ; you will be all
right when the time comes," the secretary said sooth-
ingly. "Nonsense," Thackeray replied; "it won't
come all right ; I can't make a speech, confound it !
That fellow Jackson let me in for this. Why don't they
get Dickens to take the chair ? He can make a speech

^ Yesterdays with AntJiors.

SOME SPEECHES 265

and a good one. . . . Pm of no use. . . . They little
think how nervous I am ; and Dickens doesn't know
the meaning of the word."^

Thackeray spoke at the dinners of the Literary Fund,
the Theatrical Fund, and other charitable institutions ;
and he replied for Literature at a Royal Academy
dinner and elsewhere. He was one of the stewards of
the banquet given to Macready at the London Tavern
on March i, 1851, on the occasion of the actor's retire-
ment, and he proposed the health of Mrs. Macready
and her family.

Thackeray took a great deal of trouble over his
speech to be delivered at the farewell banquet given to
him on the eve of his departure for the second visit to
America. *' It is very kind of my friends to give me a
dinner," he said, ''but I wish it was over, for such
things set me trembling. Besides," he exclaimed to
Mr. Hodder, '' I have to make a speech, and what am I
to say? Here, take a pen in your hand and sit down,
and I'll see if I can hammer out something. It's ham-
mering now ; I'm afraid it will be stammering by-and-
by." He dictated the speech, and tried to learn it;
but the speech as delivered, those who were present
have asserted, fell far short of the speech as written,
and Thackeray was firmly convinced that he had bun-
gled the business.

My dear fellow [he wrote to Macready from New
York, November 20, 1855], it is about that horrible
nightmare of a dinner I want to speak to you. You
must know I intended to say something funny about
Macbeth and Banquo ; and then to finish off with the
prettiest compliment and give some notion of the

^ George Hodder : Merjwries of My Time.

266 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

kindness I was feeling — I blundered in the joke, left
out the kindness and the compliment — made an awful
fiasco. If I lose my head when I try speechmaking,
all is up with me. I say what I don't mean, what I
don't know afterwards, the Lord forgive me — and you
must, if I said aught (I don't know for certain that I
did or didn't) which was unpleasing. I am savage
sometimes when my heart is at its tenderest, and I
want to tell you now — and no other words are authen-
tic, and if I said 'em I deny 'em — that I felt pleased
and touch'd by your kindness and apologise hereby
for my own blunders and cordially shake you by the
hand.^

No amount of practice will make a great speaker out
of a man who lacks eloquence and the other essential
qualities, but it will in course of time enable an in-
telligent man to say clearly what is in his mind. So
Thackeray argued, when he offered himself to the
Oxford electors as their representative in Parliament.

As to my own opinions on public questions, you
may have heard them pretty frequently expressed on
many occasions. I only hope, if you elect me to
Parliament, I shall be able to obviate the little
difficulty which has been placarded against me — that
I could not speak. I own I cannot speak very well,
but I shall learn. I cannot spin out glib sentences
by the yard as some people can ; but if I have got
anything in my mind, if I feel strongly on any
question, I have, I believe, got brains enough to
express it.

Candid friends hinted that Thackeray was becoming
a tuft-hunter. "Mr. Thackeray has said more, and
more effectively, about snobs and snobbism than any
other man," Harriet Martineau has written ; "and yet

^ W. M. Thackeray : Notes for Speech at Dinner, October ii, iS^g,
etc. , printed for Major W. H. Lambert, Philadelphia, 1896.

A DINER OUT 267

his frittered life, and his obedience to the call of the
great, are the observed of all observers. As it is, so it
must be ; but ' O the pity of it, the pity of it ! ' Great
and unusual allowance is to be made in his case, I am
aware ; but this does not lessen the concern occasioned
by the spectacle of one after another of the aristocracy of
nature making the Koto to the aristocracy of accident."
"Thackeray had grown a little blase,^^ Sir Frederick
Pollock wrote in 1849 ; and some years later : " Thack-
eray . . . after he became famous, liked no subject so
well as himself and his books " ; and this, too, after
Thackeray had humorously complained to Mr. Brook-
field that at a dinner at the "Star and Garter" with
the Strutts and Romillys they talked about "Vanity
Fair" and "Pendennis" almost incessantly, though
he declared he tried to turn the conversation at least
ten times, but they would not let him. Very probably
these people who complained of Thackeray's con-
versation turning on his books were the very people
who would not permit the subject to be changed. ^
Thackeray was aware of the charges brought against
him, and replied to them when, in the person of
"Brown the Elder," he was discoursing on Friendship:

To know young noblemen and brilliant and
notorious town-bucks and leaders of fashion, has
this great disadvantage ; that if you talk about them
or are seen with them much, you offend all your
friends of middle life. It makes men envious to

^ It is interesting in this respect to compare an extract from Macaulay's
Diary. " I dined at Lady Charlotte Lindsay's with Hallam and Kinglake.
I am afraid that I talked too much about my book. Yet really the fault
was not mine. People -would introduce the subject. I will be more
guarded ; yet how difficult it is to hit the right point ! To turn the con-
versation might look ungracious and affected."

268 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

see their acquaintances better off than they them-
selves are.

Of course he had to pay the inevitable price for his
social popularity — the loss of some of his friends of
early life. "I like what are called Bohemians and
fellows of that sort," he told John Eston Cooke. " I
have seen all sorts of society — dukes, duchesses, lords
and ladies, authors, actors, and painters — and taken
altogether I think I like painters the best, and Bohe-
mians generally. They are more natural and un-
conventional ; they wear their hair on their shoulders
if they want, and dress picturesquely and carelessly."^
That is not like the language of a tuft-hunter, nor is
the following sentiment likely to be expressed by an
idolater of rank :

When I see those magnificent dandies yawning
out of White's or caracoUing in the Park, I like to
think that Brummell was the greatest of them all, and
that Brummell's father was a footman. ^

Nevertheless he thoroughly admired the je ne sais
qtioz that marks the gentleman.

(The Kickleburys) are travelling with Mr. Bloun-
dell, who was a gentleman once and still retains
about him some faint odour of that time of bloom. ^

It is true poor Plantagenet (Gaunt) is only an
idiot ... a zany . . . and yet you see somehow that
he is a gentleman.*

^ Apple fan's Magazine, September 1S79.

2 Brummell's father, as a matter of fact, was private secretary to
Lord Liverpool, and in that capacity amassed a fortune, set up as a
country gentleman, and entertained Fox, Sheridan, and other notabilities
at Donning-ton Hall. The Beau's grandfather, however, was a small
tradesman who let lodgings.

3 The Kickleburys on the Rhine.

* Dr. Birch and His Young Friends.

ON GOOD BREEDING 269

These are among the lines that Thackeray has
written, expressive of the high value he placed on
good breeding. " No doubt a man may be an earl of
eleven descents, and yet be a pitifully mean creature,"
he once said to Cordy Jeaffreson ; ''all the same for that,
I am of opinion that it takes three generations to make
a gentleman."^ But a man may like to be in the
company of gentlemen without being a snob !

It cannot be seriously believed that Thackeray
neglected the friends of earlier days. We all know
how it is. If a social equal or inferior passes us in
the street without a word or recognition, it is because he
does not see us ; but if a person of much higher rank
does the same, then it is because he does not wish
to see us. The same absurd sensitiveness, which
can only arise from a feeling of uncertainty about
one's position, may be seen when a family has
lost its money. They lose their friends, and then to
the end of the chapter grumble at the perfidy of
well-to-do people. But is it entirely the fault of the
friends? More often it is because the unfortunate
people are on the look out for slights and insults in a
way that was quite unnatural to them in their days of
prosperity. Thus it was, no doubt, with many of
those who found Thackeray bored or cold.

When a man gets this character (of being haughty
and supercilious to old acquaintances) he never loses
it [he defended himself in a letter to his relative,
Mrs. Bayne]. This opinion once put forth against
a man, all his friends believe it, accommodate thern-
selves to the new theory, see coolness where none is
meant. They won't allow for the time an immensely

1 J. C. Jeaffreson: A Book of Recollections, Vol. I., p. 250.

270 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

enlarged acquaintance occupies, and fancy I am
dangling after lords and fine people because I am
not so much in their drawing-rooms as in former
days. They don't know in what a whirl a man
plunges who is engaged in my business. Since I
began this work (lecturing), besides travelling, read-
ing, seeing people, dining — when I am forced out
and long to be quiet — I write at the rate of five
thousand letters a year. I have a heap before me
now — six of them are about lectures — one from an
old gentleman whom I met on the railroad and who
sends me his fugitive poems. I must read them,
answer, and compliment the old gentleman. Another
from a poor widow, in bad spelling, asking for
help. Nobody knows the work until he is in it ; and
of course, with all this, old friends hint you are
changed, you are forsaking us for great people,
and so forth, and so forth. ^

Major Dwyer thought that no man was ever so much
improved by success as Thackeray, and testimony to
the effect that the novelist was a most agreeable com-
panion in the days of his prosperity has been borne by
friends and acquaintances innumerable, both in Eng-
land and the United States. ^' He is a very jolly
fellow, and no 'High Art 'about him," said Albert
Smith,- and this, coming from a man cast in a very
different mould, is high praise ; and John Hollings-
head has written, ''What I saw of Thackeray im-
pressed me with his gentleness and charity. Far from
being a cynic, he was more like a good-natured school-
boy."^ "Thackeray drew many unto him, for he had
engaging as well as fine qualities. He was open-
handed and kind-hearted. He had not an overween-

1 Merivale and Marizals : Thackeray, p. 150.

2 J. C. JeafFreson : A Book of Recollections, Vol. I, p. 285.
^ My Lifetime,

IN SOCIETY 271

ing opinion of his literary consequence, and he was
generous as regarded the people whom the world chose
to call his rivals."^ Thus Frederick Locker-Lampson,
who knew him well ; and that practical man of affairs,
Henry Vizetelly, has contributed his portion of praise:
**His placid temper and pleasant courtesy charmed
all who came into contact with him. . . . Thackeray
was reticent in expressing his opinion upon people
whom he did not like, and very rarely said ill-natured
things about anyone."^ *' He is a finer, larger, loveabler
man, or rather fellow, than ever," Dr. John Brown
wrote to Lady Trevelyan ; ' and the Rev. Whitwell
Elwin declared, "I can never speak of him without a
pang, for I loved him. He was a fine, noble man.
His manners were as simple as a child's. He had no
assumption, no affectation."*

Thackeray had some enemies, of course, as who
among the fortunate has not? Has ever a successful
man gone through life without stirring up angry
feelings or arousing jealousy? Dr. Gordon Hake,
Serjeant Ballantine, and others have said unkind
things of him ; but the majority of those who disliked
him did so because they did not understand him.
''Those who knew him best," said George Hodder,
*' loved him best." He was a sick, as well as an over-
worked, man, often suffering pain from an internal
disease, and he could not always be smiling. One
day he passed a friend with the curtest nod: "Who

^ Afy Confidences.

^ Glajices Back Through Seventy Years.
' Letters of Dr. John Brown, p. 113.

* Whitwell Elwin : Sorne Eighteenth Century Men of Letters, Vol. I,
P- 157-

2/2 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

would have thought," said the other, ''that we were
up till four o'clock this morning together? He sang
his 'Dr. Luther' and was the liveliest of us all."^
Years later he was to meet Anthony Trollope for the
first time at the inaugural dinner given by George
Smith to the contributors of the Cornhill Magazine.
Both he and Trollope had looked forward to the
occasion ; but when the night came, and the pub-
lisher introduced Trollope, Thackeray said abruptly,
" How d'ye do?" and turned on his heel.^ These are
instances of what Maunsell B. Field called the great
man's " moods of surly incivility" ; but in reality they
were merely the outcome of intense physical agony.
It is more pleasant to turn to the picture of him con-
jured up by Mrs. J. F. Fields. " I seem to see one
kindly face — large, full of humour, full of human
sympathy. The face belongs to Thackeray, and I can
recall his goodness to one who, although married
already, was hardly more than 'a slip of a girl,' and
very much afraid of him — afraid, let me say, rather of
the idea of him, the great author and famous lecturer,
who was making his crowded audiences laugh and cry
at his simple word every evening ; the great man of
the moment whom everybody was ' running after,'
yet of whom they said that he liked his friends so
much better than all their noise about himself, that
he was always trying to escape from it — and here he
was ! — coming to see — whom ? Well, it appears it did
not so much matter, for he was bent on kindnesses.

^ Blanchard Jerrold : The Best of All Good Company.
' G. M. Smith: Our Birth and Parentage (^Cornhill Magazine,
January 1901).

THE REAL THACKERAY 273

and he took it all in at a glance, and sat down by the
window, and drew me to him, and told me about his
' little girls ' at home ; how he walked down the wrong
side of Piccadilly one day, and so lost what money
he had had out of his pocket — money which belonged
properly to these same dear girls of his ; therefore it
came about that he made up his mind, though it was
hard enough to come away from them, to get some-
thing to take back to them in place of what he had
lost ; and how they were the dearest girls in the world,
and when I came to England I should find them more
like old friends, and should have somebody, I am sure,
he thought, to * play with,' though, under the circum-
stances, he could not use just those words ! And then,
soon after, he went away, leaving a great train of
sunshine and kindness behind him which has never
faded."!

There is the real Thackeray, the Thackeray who
was so lavish of kindness, and lavish, too, not only
of words, but of money. To be in trouble was a sure
passport to his heart. His charity was only bounded
by his means ; he did not wait to be asked to do a
favour ; he loved to anticipate, not merely the request,
but even the wish. How delicately, too, he dispensed
his " loans," as he called the alms he bestowed upon
those less fortunate than himself. Lady Ritchie has
related how he filled a pill-box with Napoleons, wrote
on it "one to be taken occasionally when required,"
and gave it to his mother to send to a distressed gentle-
woman. We are told by Miss Perry how he visited
an old acquaintance in very reduced circumstances,

1 A Shelf of Old Books.
1.— T

274 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

administered some little rebuke on the thoughtlessness
of not laying by some of the easily gained gold of
youth or manhood and, slipping into a blotting-book
a hundred-pound note, hurried away. '*I never saw

him do it," said poor old P . " I was very angry

because he said I had been a reckless old goose — and
then a hundred pounds falls out of my writing-book.
God bless him !"

I am sincerely sorry to hear of your position [he
wrote to George Hodder, enclosing a cheque], and
send this contribution which came so opportunely
from another friend, whom I was enabled once to
help. When you are well-to-do again I know you
will pay it back, and I daresay somebody else will
want the money, which is heartily at your service.

The money *' which came so opportunely from an-
other friend " was probably a pious fiction invented to
spare the recipient's feelings and to make the lender's
generosity appear less considerable than it was, for he
employed this method more than once. One morning
he knocked at the door of Horace Mayhew's chambers
in Regent Street, crying from without, ''It's no use,
Horry Mayhew ; open the door." On entering he said
cheerfully, "Well, young gentleman, you'll admit an
old fogy," and when leaving he remarked: ''By the
way, how stupid ! I was going away without doing
part of the business of my visit. You spoke the other
day of poor George. Somebody — most unaccountably
— has returned me a five-pound note I lent him long
ago. I didn't expect it. So just hand it to George,
and tell him when his pocket will bear it to pass it on
to some poor fellow of his acquaintance. By-bye ! "

HIS GENEROSITY 275

and he was gone. Trollope has related how he met
Thackeray in Whitehall and told him a sad story of a
mutual friend who required a loan of ;;^2000 to save
him from utter ruin. " Do you mean to say that I
am to find ;^2000?" Thackeray said, with an oath.
Trollope hastened to explain that he had not sug-
gested that, he had thought merely that they might
discuss the matter. '*Then," says Trollope, 'Uhere
came over his face a peculiar smile, and a wink in his
eye, and he whispered his suggestion, as though half
ashamed of his meanness, 'I'll go half,' he said, 'if
anybody will do the rest.'"^ Truly, as Trollope re-
marked, his generosity was overflowing.

Thackeray, who always found pleasure in hearing ot
kind deeds, and telling of them, was always himself
doing kind things, begging somebody to ask a bishop
for a living for a curate who wanted to get married,
recommending Marguerite Power, the niece of his friend
Lady Blessington, for the post of Paris Correspondent
of the Illustrated Lo7idon News, or endeavouring to
set an impoverished French artist, Louis Marvy, on
his feet.

In large gatherings Thackeray, who was an intensely
shy man, was inclined to be satirical and severe in his
conversation, and Lady Dorothy Nevill has told us how
she was afraid of him ever after she heard him adminis-
ter a terrible verbal castigation to someone who had
incurred his displeasure. When, at a dinner party, a
dignified man of letters with a broken nose discoursed
persistently of love, ''What has the world come to?"
said Thackeray aloud, "when two broken-nosed old

^ Anthony Trollope : Thackeray, p. 60.

2/6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

fogies like you and me sit talking about love to each
other " ; and, in more bitter vein, when a group of
members of the Reform Club were gossiping unkindly
of another, recently deceased, "That's right," said
Thackeray. "Kick him. Trampleon him. He'sdead!'"
He reserved these onslaughts for those whom he con-
sidered stupid people, and as such he classed those who
"do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and
self-conceited, i.e.^ bigoted, i.e.^ cruel, i.e.^ ungentle,
uncharitable, unchristian." When he found he had
made a mistake and thought ill of one who deserved
otherwise, he was always anxious without delay to make
the amende honorable. He had always disliked John
Wilson Croker, but when, after that unpopular person
was dead, someone told Thackeray how Croker had
begged his wife to seek out some homeless boys, and
let them stay with them from Saturday to Monday,
saying, " They will destroy your flower-beds and upset
my inkstands, but we can help them more than they
can hurt us," Thackeray choked, and forthwith went to
Mrs. Croker and asked her pardon for ever having
entertained unkindly thoughts of her husband.

Thackeray had a great sense of fun and was always
ready to indulge it. This broader humour seldom
appears in his writings after " Major Gahagan's Remi-
niscences," but the source from which that delightful
burlesque sprang, never dried up, and his love of
buffoonery lasted until the end. Frederick Locker-
Lampson remembered seeing him pirouette, wave his
arms majestically, and declaim in burlesque — an inten-
tionally awkward imitation of the ridiculous manner
that is sometimes met with in French opera ; and he

AS CONVERSATIONALIST 277

also recalled an occasion when he was talking to
Thackeray's daughters, their father put on his visitor's
hat, many sizes too small for him, and strutted about
flourishing it in the old Lord Cardigan style.

Dean Hole has said that Thackeray was the best
talker he ever listened to and that when it pleased him
to talk, " he said so many good things . . . that they
trod down and suffocated each other" ; and, wrote Mrs.
Browning from Rome in 1854, **If anybody wants
small talk by handfuls, of glittering dust swept out of
salonSy here's Mr. Thackeray." He was not a wit in
the sense that Sydney Smith and Oscar Wilde were ;
but there can be no doubt that he must have said far
more good things than have been recorded. When he
saw in a window off the Strand the legend, ** Mutual
Loan Fund Association," and a companion wondered
what that meant, ''Oh, it means," said the novelist,
**that they have got no money and lend it to each

other." ''If that d d irreligious fish had been to

afternoon church," he remarked to Sir Mountstuart
Grant Duff, with whom he was angling one Sunday,
" we should not have caught him." It was on William
Palmer Hale, famous for the quantity of beer he could
drink, he pronounced this epitaph: "Take him for
half-and-half, we shall not look upon his like again."
When outside a shop he saw two tubs of oysters side
by side, labelled respectively a shilling and fifteen pence
a dozen, " How these," he murmured, looking at the
cheaper variety, "must hate the others."

Charles Mackay has put it on record that Thackeray
was the best improvisatore of his time, and certainly
his fondness for the exercise was perennial. He was

2/8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

always rhyming from his school-days to the end of his
life. A lady begged him to write a verse in her album
— a practice to which he was always averse. Turning
over the pages, however, he found the following :

" Mont Blanc is the Monarch of Mountains,
They crowned him long ago,
But who they got to put it on,
Nobody seems to know.

"Albert Smith."

Then, yielding to temptation, he took up a pen and
wrote immediately underneath :

A HUMBLE SUGGESTION

I know that Albert wrote in a hurry —

To criticise I scarce presume ;
But yet, methinks that Lindley Murray

Instead of '* who " had written " whom."

W. M. Thackeray.

I

When he saw the lines that ''Soapy Sam" Wilber-
force, Bishop of Oxford, had written on the unorthodox
Bishop Colenso, jf

'* There once was a Bishop of Natal,
Whose doubts on the Deluge were fatal ; '

Said the infidel Zulu,
* D'you believe this — you fool, you ? '
* No, I don't,' said the Bishop of Natal." '

Thackeray at once capped it with :

There is the bold Bishop Colenso,
Whose heresies seem to offend so.

Quoth Sam of the Soap,

*' Bring fagot and rope ;
For we know he a'nt got no friends, oh ! "

\

IMPROMPTUS 279

** Little Billee" was chanted off impromptu at a
supper-party at Rome ; and there are many other,
though minor, instances of the kind. When at dinner
one day, a neighbour, knowing him to be a gourmet,
asked him which part of the fowl he preferred, with
portentous gravity he answered :

Oh ! what's the best part of a fowl ?

My own Anastasia cried :
Then, giving- a terrible howl,

She turned on her stomach and died.

Mere fun, mere farcical nonsense, he did not, of
course, value highly. When he was asked if ''Vanity
Fair" would be funny, he retorted that it would be
humorous. He had, indeed, the same keen sense of
the ridiculous that he bestowed upon Becky Sharp ;
and it was this, probably, that caused him at times
to under-estimate the value of even his greatest books :
he could not always take himself seriously as a great
writer, and he was inclined to doubt the merits of his
creations. As with every true humorist, the keynote
to his character is sadness. " In much wisdom is
much grief." And, above all else, Thackeray was
wise and very sad. He told Dr. John Brown how, on
one occasion at Paris, he found himself in a great
crowded salon, and looking from one end, across a sea
of heads, being in Swift's place of calm in a crowd
(" an inch or two above it"), he saw at the other end
a strange visage, staring at him with an expression of
comical woebegoneness ; and how, after a little while,
he found this rueful being was himself in the mirror.
And he liked to relate the pathetic story of the sad-

28o WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

looking man in a decline, who, consulting a great
physician, was recommended to go to the pantomime,
where the sight of Harlequin would be sure to do him
good, and cheer him up. " I am Harlequin," said the
patient simply.

Thackeray loved his home and his friends, and
books, drawings and music : he enjoyed a good dinner,
and sometimes a jovial party ; but Vanity Fair seemed
to him a sad place.

A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking
through an exhibition of this sort (Vanity Fair), will
not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or other
people's hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness
touches and amuses him here and there ; — a pretty
child looking at a gingerbread stall ; a pretty girl
blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses
her fairing ; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the wag-
gon, mumbling his bone with the honest family which
lives by his tumbling ; but the general impression is
one more melancholy than mirthful. When you
come home, you sit down, in a sober, contemplative,
not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself
to your books or your business.^

The world called to him, as it had done to Cruik-
shank, and so many others, '* Make us laugh, or you
and your children starve." He did his best, but he
could not assume the role of farceur for very long at
a time. He might be cutting the most amusing jokes
in a private company, or writing the most amusing
verses for the public ; but generally there can be
found, under the surface, a touch of pathos, or of
melancholy.

^ Vanity Fair — Before the Curtain.

HIS SADNESS 281

What funny things I've written when fit to hang
myself [he said in one letter to Mrs. Brookfield ; and
in another] : I did the doggerel verses, which were
running in my head when I last wrote you, and they
are very lively. You'd say the author must have
been in the height of good spirits ! . . . No, you
wouldn't, knowing his glum habit, and dismal views
of life generally.

This he repeated in *'The Pen and the Album":

I've helped him to pen many a line for bread ;

To joke, with sorrow aching in his heart ;
And make your laughter when his own heart bled.

Fate, dealing harshly with him, had made memory
painful, and it distressed him to read his own writings.

Our books are diaries, in which our own feelings
must of necessity be set down. As we look to the
page written last month, or ten years ago, we re-
member the day and its events; the child ill, mayhap,
in the adjoining room, and the doubts and fears
which racked the brain as it still pursued its work ;
the dear old friend who read the commencement
of the tale, and whose gentle hand shall be laid in
ours no more. I own for my part that, in reading
pages which this hand penned formerly, I often lose
sight of the text under my eyes. It is not the words
I see, but that past day ; that bygone page of life's
history ; that tragedy, comedy it may be, which our
little home company was enacting ; that merry-
making which we shared ; that funeral which we
followed ; that bitter, bitter grief which we buried,^

J De Finibus,

CHAPTER XV

PUNCH (1847-1854)

Thackeray's earnings in 1848 — success of "Vanity Fair" in book-form
— Thackeray resigns the assistant-editorship of the Examiner — and
retires from the staff of Frasers Magazhie — his Christmas Books — the
Times attack on *' The Kickleburys on the Rhine " — and Thackeray's
reply, "An Essay on Thunder and Small Beer" — Thackeray sensitive
to criticism — but makes jokes at his own expense — writes again for
the Morning Chronicle — his contributions to Punch from 1847 —
" Punch's Prize Novelists " — " Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man
About Town" — the " Proser Papers" — withdraws from Punch in
1854 — his reference to his withdrawal in his article on John Leech — a
slip of the pen — his letter to the proprietors of Punch concerning his
resignation — he attends the dinners to the end — his indebtedness
to Punch — Punch's tribute to him — and his to Punch — his friends on
the staff — Douglas Jerrold — Thackeray's Ballads — " Bow Street
Ballads" — " Lyra Hibernica" — his limitations as a writer of verse —
his sense of parody — and of tenderness — " The Cane-Bottomed
Chair" — " St. Sophia of Kioff " — " The Chronicle of the Drum " — his
merits as a writer of light and humorous verse.

WHEN ''Vanity Fair" was coming out
Thackeray told his mother that while
this novel greatly enhanced his reputa-
tion, it did not materially increase his
income. That income, however, was not contemp-
tible : ''Vanity Fair" alone brought him in fifty
guineas a month, the profits of his Christmas Books
and of the "Snob Papers" and "The Great Hoggarty
Diamond " in book-form were considerable, and he
received a handsome salary from Punchy a§ well as

282

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKEKAV
From a painting by Samuel Laui-ence in the National Portrait Gallery

1847] "MRS. PERKINS'S BALL" 283

remuneration for articles and reviews elsewhere : he
must have been earning at least ;!^iooo a year. That
he was soon making more than that there can be no
doubt, for 1500 copies of ''Vanity Fair" in book-form
were sold immediately after publication, and for " Pen-
dennis" he received more money than for the earlier
story. He was doing well enough in 1848 to resign
the assistant-editorship of the Exajnmer which, at a
salary of ;^20o a year, he had held since 1844 under the
editorship of Albany Fonblanque.

From Eraser's Magazine he had retired on the eve
of the publication of ''Vanity Fair," and he took his
farewell of the readers he had delighted for more than
ten years with story, verse, reviews, and sketches, in
the following characteristic passage on "the very last
page of the very last sheet " of the number for January
1847:

Ha! what have we here? — M. A. Titmarsh's
Christmas Book — Mrs, Perkinses Ball. Dedicated
to the Mulligan of Ballymulligan. Ballymulligan !
Bally fiddlestick! What jj/om, too, Mr. Titmarsh?
You, you sneering wretch, setting up a Christmas-
book of your own? This, then, is the meaning of
your savage feelings towards "the minor fiddlers" !
Is your kit, sirrah, any bigger than theirs? You,
who in the columns of this very Magazine, have
sneered at the works of so many painters, look at
your own performances !

Some of your folks have scarcely more legs than
Miss Biffin ; they have fins instead of hands, — they
squint, almost every one of them !

All this is quite true. But see where we have
come to? — to the very last page of the very last
sheet ; and the writer is called upon to stop just

284 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1S47-

at the very moment he was going to cut his own
head off.

So have I seen Mr. Clown (in that Christmas
drama which has been foremost in my thought during
all the above meditations) set up the gallows, adjust
the rope, try the noose curiously, and — tumble head
over heels.^

Thackeray's withdrawal from the Examiner and
Erasers Magazine enabled him to devote himself to
work that was more remunerative. He followed his
first Christmas Book, *'Mrs. Perkins's Ball," with
others, and in December of each year from 1847 to
1850 he issued, one by one, ''Our Street", ''Dr.
Birch and his Young Friends", "The Kickleburys on
the Rhine," and "Rebecca and Rowena," the last
founded upon the earlier " Proposals for a Continuation
of Ivanhoe."2 "The Kickleburys on the Rhine" was
severely handled by the Times and, the review happen-
ing to appear just before the second edition went to
press, Thackeray, always sensitive to criticism, took
the opportunity to write a preface, "Being an Essay
on Thunder and Small Beer."

I would rather have a good word than a bad one
from any person : but if a critic abuses me from a
high place, and it is worth my while, I will appeal
[he wrote]. If I can show that the judge who is
delivering sentence against me, and laying down
the law and making a pretence of learning, has no
learning and no law, and is neither more nor less
than a pompous noodle, who ought not to be heard
in any respectable court, I will do so ; and then,

^ A Grumble at the Christmas Books. Thackeray in January 1853
contributed one more paper to Eraser s Magazine : " Mr. Thackeray in
the United States. John Small to the Editor of Eraser's Magazine."

^ Eraser's Magazine^ August and September, 1846.

i8S4] "THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE" 285

dear friends, perhaps you will have something to
laugh at in this book.

He reprinted the Times review in this preface and
made very merry over it.

Why, a man who can say of a Christmas book [he
retorted] that "it is an opuscule denominated so-
and-so, and ostensibly intended to swell the tide of
expansive emotion incident upon the exodus of the
old year," must evidently have had immense sums
and care expended on his early education, and de-
serves a splendid return. You can't go into the
market, and get scholarship like that, without paying
for it : even the flogging that such a writer must
have had in early youth (if he was at a public school
where the rods were paid for) must have cost his
parents a good sum. Where would you find any
but an accomplished classical scholar to compare the
books of the present (or indeed any other) writer to
''sardonic divings after the pearl of truth, whose
lustre is eclipsed in the display of the diseased
oyster " ; mere Billingsgate doesn't turn out oysters
like these ; they are of the Lucrine lake : — this
satirist has pickled his rods in Latin brine. Fancy,
not merely a diver, but a sardonic diver : and the
expression of his confounded countenance on dis-
covering not only a pearl, but an eclipsed pearl,
which was in a diseased oyster I I say it is only
by an uncommon and happy combination of taste,
genius, and industry, that a man can arrive at utter-
ing such sentiments in such fine language, — that
such a man ought to be well paid, as I have no
doubt he is, and that he is worthily employed to
write literary articles, in large type, in the leading
journal of Europe. Don't we want men of eminence
and polite learning to sit on the literary bench, and
to direct the public opinion ?

The culprit was a friend of Thackeray, Charles Lamb
Kenney, and very cynically he explained the reason

286 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

for the tone in which he had spoken of *'The Kickle-
burys on the Rhine." *' My only motive for pitching
into the book was to please my employers," he told
Jeaffreson. "Thackeray was not liked by them, and
I wished them to like me. My friendly regard for the
writer of the poor book was overborne by a strong
sense of my duty to the public, and a still stronger care
for my own interest."^ If the editor of the Times did
not like Thackeray, the novelist was unaware of it, for
in 185 1 when Mark Lemon would not print the " May-
Day Ode " in Punch because the manuscript arrived
late, Thackeray took it to Printing House Square,
which took it gladly and paid generously for it.
The Times, however, attacked "Esmond," and this
Thackeray could not forgive.

As for the little hint about Printing House Square
[Thackeray wrote in 1858 to Captain Atkinson, the
author of " Curry and Rice," in which volume first
appeared the verses, "Little Billee "] I know the
editor and most of the writers, and, knowing, never
think of asking a favour for myself or any mortal
man. They are awful and inscrutable, and a request
for a notice might bring down a slasher upon you,
just as I once had in the Times for one of my own
books (" Esmond "), of which the sale was absolutely
stopped by a Times article.-

Thackeray, indeed, was often strangely sensitive to
criticism, though he would make jokes at his own
expense, or, in an aside, would chuckle at his critics.
In " Mr. Brown's Letters" we learn that

Horner is asleep in the library at the Polyanthus :

1 J. C. Jeaffreson : A Book of Recollections, Vol. I, p. 296.
- Leisure Hour, September 1883.

i8S4] HIS SENSITIVENESS 287

What is he reading? Hah! "Pendennis," No.
VIII. — hum, let us pass on,

and on the previous page is the drawing illustrative
of the episode.

The heroine is not faultless (ah ! that will be a
great relief to some folks, for many writers' good
women are, you know, so very insipid),

he said in ''Lovel the Widower," probably thinking
of the strictures passed upon Amelia in "Vanity
Fair " ; and later in the same novel he wrote :

Some authors, who shall be nameless, are, I know,
accused of depicting the most feeble, brainless,
namby-pamby heroines, for ever whimpering tears,
and prattling commonplaces.

When Thackeray said, *'They have only bought so
many of my new book"; or, "Have you seen the
abuse of my new number?" or, " What am I to turn
my hand to? They are getting tired of my novels,"
Trollope admitted that he could not understand
him. Trollope remarked that he knew authors who
boasted of their thousands of copies sold, but he had
never heard any other writer declare that no one would
read his masterpiece, and that the world was becoming
tired of him; and he was puzzled accordingly. Yet the
cause of such remarks lay but little below the surface.
Thackeray spoke so, not because he was indifferent to
success or the opinion of his contemporaries, but be-
cause the pain inflicted by these wounds would have
been greater if he had thought anyone else would
sympathise with him. He preferred to say, "This
book is a failure," rather than let anyone else tell him

288 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [i847-

he had not succeeded. He was anxious to avoid
criticism by himself turning critic. Sometimes he was
almost absurdly sensitive, and Frederick Locker-
Lampson has related a strange instance of this
exaggerated susceptibility to criticism. *'I happened
to meet him as I was leaving the Travellers' Club.
Even now I think I could point out the particular flag-
stone on which the dear fellow was standing, as he
gazed down on me through his spectacles with that
dreary expression of his which his friends knew so
well. He said, ' What do you think of the last
number?' (No. 2 or 3 of 'The Newcomes.') He him-
self was evidently not satisfied with it. ' I like it
immensely,' was my cordial rejoinder. A word or
two more passed respecting the illustrations, which
had been sharply criticised, and just as we parted,
I was tactless enough to add, ' But, my dear fellow,
perhaps there may be some kind people who will say
that you did the cuts and Doyle the letter-press.' On
this Thackeray's jaw dropped, and he exclaimed
bitterly, *I — Oh! really, that's your opinion, is it?'
I saw at once what a mistake I had made, but I could
only reply, ' I spoke in fun, pure fun ; you know
perfectly well how much I admire your writings, and
also Doyle's cuts.' But Thackeray would have none
of it, and turned wrathfully away in the direction of
Pimlico. However, his wrath, I presume, died away
in the large and charitable air of the Green Park, for
when I met him the day after he was as amiable as
ever. The fact is I had so exalted an opinion of
Thackeray and of his writing that it seemed impossible
such a demi-god should care for aught anybody said ;

i854] "PRIZE NOVELISTS" 289

whereas, like Tennyson, he felt anything that every-
body said."^

The great mass of Thackeray's miscellaneous
writings after the publication of "Vanity Fair"
appeared in Punch. A glance at the Bibliography at
the end of this work will show how numerous were his
contributions both with pen and pencil during the
years that ''Vanity Fair" and "Pendennis" were
being published. In 1847, after the "Snob Papers"
were brought to a conclusion in February, began the
series of parodies of contemporary novelists, then
called "Punch's Prize Novelists," and rechristened
"Novels by Eminent Hands." Among his subjects
were to be Dickens and himself, but Mark Lemon
would not have the parody on Dickens, and so neither
was written : Lytton, Mrs. Gore, G. P. R. James, Feni-
more Cooper, were burlesqued ; and Lever, who after
reading "Phil Fogarty" declared he might as well
shut up shop and did actually alter the character of
his novels; and Disraeli, who never forgave " Cod-
lingsby," and took a belated revenge by maliciously
caricaturing Thackeray as St. Barbe in "Endymion."
The " Prize Novelists" were followed in 1849 by " Mr.
Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town," so full
of worldly wisdom ; and these, in their turn, by the
" Proser Papers," which in some ways were a con-
tinuation of "Mr. Brown's Letters." After 1850
Thackeray wrote less for Punch, and his last con-
tribution, "A Second Letter to an Eminent Person,"
appeared in the issue for September 23, 1854, about
which time he severed his connection with the paper.

^ My Confidences.
I.— U

290 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

Four years before, Richard Doyle had retired from
the Round Table, and to this and his own resignation
Thackeray made reference in his article on that other
invaluable contributor to Punch.

Through the violent opinions which Mr. Punch
expressed regarding the Roman Catholic hierarchy,
he lost the invaluable services, the graceful pencil,
the harmless wit, the charming fancy, of Mr. Doyle.
Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the
biographer of Jeames, the author of the Snob
Papers, resigned his functions on account of Mr.
Punch's assaults upon the present Emperor of the
French, whose anger Jeames thought it was un-
patriotic to arouse.^

It was unfortunate that just after leaving Punch he
should have inadvertently written a line that gave
offence to his colleagues on the staff of that paper. It
occurred in the article on Leech just mentioned.

There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's
cabinet John Leech is the right hand man. Fancy a
number of Punch without Leech's pictures ! What
would you give for it? The learned gentlemen who
write the work must feel that, without him, it were as
well left alone.

Naturally the Punch authors were indignant, and
Thackeray could only explain it, when writing to
Whitwell Elwin (the editor of the Quarterly Review), by
saying that he ''slipped it over totally in the proof.
. . . But we get to write as fast as we talk."^ To
" Professor " Percival Leigh, the author of the " Comic

^ A review of " Picture of Life and Character," by John Leech
{Quarlcrly Review, December 1854).

2 Whitwell Elwin : Soyne Eighteenth Century Men of Letters (Memoir
of Elwin. By his Son), Vol. I, p. 155.

i8S4] A SLIP OF THE PEN 291

Latin Grammar," and one of the oldest contributors to
Punchy he unreservedly expressed his regret.

Of all the slips of my fatal pen, there's none I regret
more than the unlucky half-line which has given pain
to such a kind and valued old friend as you have
been, and I trust will be still to me. I ought never
to have said ''^ Punch might as well be left unwritten
but for Leech." It was more than my meaning,
which is certainly that the drawing is a hundred times
more popular than the writing ; but I had no busi-
ness to write any such thing, and forgot it so much
that I was quite surprised when I first heard I had
been accused of sneering at Punch. I knew when I
came back from Paris, and read the line in the
Quarterly Review^ which I had forgotten as utterly
as many another speech which I have made and didn't
ought. Jerrold has had his fire into me, and, do you
know, I feel rather comforted.

Thackeray, having made the amende honorable y asked
the Punch staff to dinner, and the Punch staff came
and made merry ; but the blunder, though forgiven,
was not forgotten, and it became rumoured that it
was owing to this that Thackeray had retired from the
paper. Thackeray, hearing this, wrote on March 24,
1855, to "Pater" Evans, and placed the true version
on record.

I find a note of yours dated Feb. 5, in which
F. M. E. states that my account shall be prepared
directly. F. M. E. has a great deal to do and pay
and think of, but W. M. T. has also his engage-
ments.

I hope your "Poetry of Punch" will not be pub-
lished before my collected Ballads — You remember
(you wrote me a letter expressly on the subject) that
the Copyright of all articles in " Punch" were mine,
by stipulation — and my book would be very much

292 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

hurt by the appearance of another containing f of its
contents.

I met Murray the publisher the other day, and
cannot help fancying from his manner to me that
there is some screw loose with him too about that
unlucky Leech article. Lemon, answering one of my
letters, said that he personally complained, that my
account of leaving Punch was not correct.

There was such a row at the time, and I was so
annoyed at the wrong that I had done, that I thought
I had best leave Lemon's remonstrance for a while
and right it on some future occasion.

I recall now to you and beg you to show to him
and to any other persons who may have received a
different version of the story — what the facts were. I
had had some serious public differences with the Con-
duct of Punch — about the abuse of Prince Albert
and the Crystal Palace on which I very nearly
resigned, about abuse of Lord Palmerston, about
abuse finally of L. Napoleon — in all which Punch
followed the Times, which I think and thought was
writing unjustly at that time, and dangerously for
the welfare and peace of the Country.

Coming from Edinburgh I bought a Punch contain-
ing the picture of a Beggar on Horseback, in which
the Emperor was represented galloping to Hell with a
sword reeking with blood. As soon as ever I could
after my return (a day or 2 days after), I went to
Bouverie St., saw you and gave in my resignation.

I mention this because I know the cause of my
resignation has been questioned at Punch — because
this was the cause of it. I talked it over with you,
and Leech saw me coming out of your room, and I
told him of my retirement.

No engagement afterwards took place between us;
nor have I ever since been a member of Punch's
Cabinet, so to speak. Wishing you all heartily well,
I wrote a few occasional papers last year — and not
liking the rate of remuneration, which was less than
that to which I had been accustomed in my time — I
wrote no more.

i8s4] COMRADES ON PUNCH 293

And you can say for me as a reason why I should
feel hurt at your changing the old rates of payment
made to me — that I am not a man who quarrels about
a guinea or two except as a point of honour ; and
that when I could have had a much larger sum than
that which you gave me for my last novel — I preferred
to remain with old friends who had acted honourably
and kindly by me.

I reproach myself with having written \ a line
regarding my old Punch Companions — which was
perfectly true, which I have often said — but which
I ought not to have written. No other wrong that I
know of have I done. And I think it is now about
time that my old friends and publishers should set
me right.

To the last Thackeray would, from time to time,
attend the weekly dinners, where a place was always
kept for him ; and to the last he cherished kindly
thoughts for the paper and all who were connected
with it. "Ah, Swain," he said one day, "if it had
not been for Punch, I wonder where I should be"; and
when an old friend on the staff died, he was the first to
come forward and suggest that he and his colleagues
should offer assistance to the widow and family.

Can't we, his old comrades, do something to show
his poor widow and family our sense of his worth?
He has a son at Christ Church where, with the
family's altered means, it may not be convenient to
support the young man. Is the career likely to be
serviceable to him, and would he desire to continue
it? I shall be heartily glad to give iJ^ioo towards a
fund for his maintenance at Oxford, should he think
fit to remain there. Others of our friends, no doubt,
would join in it. It is through my connection with
Punch that I owe the good chances that have lately
befallen me, and have had so many kind offers of

294 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

help in my own days of trouble, that I would thank-
fully aid a friend whom Death has called away.^

On the sad Christmas Eve when Thackeray died, the
Punch staff met "round the old tree," mournful and
sad. ''I'll tell you what we'll do," said Horace May-
hew. "We'll sing the dear old boy's 'Mahogany
Tree'; he'd like it." Accordingly they stood up, and
with such memory of the words as each possessed, and
a catching of the breath here and there by about all of
them, the song was sung. "While generous tributes
are everywhere being paid to the genius of him who
has been suddenly called away in the fullness of his
power and the maturity of his fame, some who have
for many years enjoyed the advantage of his assistance
and the delight of his society, would simply record
that they have lost a dear friend," so runs the obituary
notice in Punch. "At an early period in the history of
the periodical he became a contributor to its pages, and
he long continued to enrich them ; and though of late
he had ceased to give other aid than suggestions and
advice, he was a constant member of our council, and
sat with us on the eighth day from that which has
saddened England's Christmas. Let the brilliancy of
his trained intellect, the terrible strength of his satire,
the subtlety of his wit, the richness of his humour, and
the catholic range of his calm wisdom, be themes for
others ; the mourning friends who inscribe these lines
to his memory think of the affectionate nature, the cheer-
ful companionship, the large heart and the open hand,
the simple courteousness, the endearing frankness of a

^ H. Vizetelly : Glances Back Through Seventy Years, Vol. II,
p. 108.

i8s4] APPRECIATION OF PUNCH 295

brave, true, honest gentleman, whom no pen but his
own could depict as those who knew him most desire. "^
Not less magnificent was the compliment Thackeray-
had paid to Punch :

When the future enquirer shall take up your
volumes, or a bundle of French plays, and contrast
the performance of your booth with that of the
Parisian theatre, he won't fail to remark how different
they are, and what different objects we admire or
satirise. As for your morality, sir, it does not be-
come me to compliment you to your venerable face ;
but permit me to say there never was before pub-
lished so many volumes that contained so much
cause for laughing, and so little for blushing, so
many jokes, and so little harm. Why, sir, say
even your modesty, which astonishes me more and
more every time I regard you, is calculated, and
not a virtue naturally inherent in you, that very
fact would argue for the high sense of the public
morality among us. We will laugh in the company
of our wives and children ; we will tolerate no in-
decorum ; we like that our matrons and girls should
be pure.

His colleagues on Punch might well deplore
Thackeray's death, for he had been a friend of almost
all of them, from "a Beckett the Beak," who had gone
before, to Sir Francis Burnand, happily still with us, at
whose first dinner at the Round Table **the bio-
grapher of Jeames" was present. ''Gentlemen," said
the veteran, ''allow the old boy to present to you the
new boy !" Tom Taylor and John Leech were friends
of his before he joined the staff, but his acquaint-
ance with the Mayhew brothers, Mark Lemon, Shirley
Brooks, Richard Doyle, Charles Keene, Percival Leigh,

^ Punch.

296 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

and Sir John Tenniel, arose out of his connection with
Punch.

Thackeray regarded as his most important rival on
the staff of Punch Douglas Jerrold — witty, brilliant
Jerrold, who is little more than a name to-day. On
receiving his early copy of Punchy he would hastily
tear off the wrapper to see ''what young Douglas has
to say this week," and would read the chapter of the
"Caudle Lectures" or ''Miss Robinson Crusoe" or
whatever the contribution might be, before turning to
the remaining contents. They said many sharp and
stinging things about one another and to one another.
When Thackeray saw at the Earl of Carlisle's a
presentation copy of one of Jerrold's books, inscribed,
"To the Right Hon. the Earl of Carlisle, k.g., k.c.b.,
etc., etc., etc.," he remarked, "Ah, this is the style
in which your rigid, uncompromising radical always
toadies to the great!" When it was rumoured that
Thackeray was leaning towards the Church of Rome,
and someone remarked, "Why, they are Romanizing
old Thackeray," "I hope," said Jerrold, "I hope
they'll begin at his nose." "Good Lord," said the
caustic wit, hearing that the other had stood sponsor to
a child, "I hope you didn't present the infant with
your own mug."

"I have known Thackeray for eighteen years, and
I don't know him yet," Jerrold complained one day ;
and, on the other hand, when Thackeray was giving
a breakfast party in 1848 to M. de Noe ("Cham"),
though asking several Punch men, he did not invite
Jerrold, because if the latter had come, he would have
taken "especial care that his own effulgence should ob-

i8s4] DOUGLAS JERROLD 297

scure all lesser lights, Cham's included." ^ Still, in spite
of these things, there was some sort of understanding
between them. In one of his drawings Thackeray has
represented Jerrold and himself in a railway carriage
listening, with most amusing expressions on their
faces, to the other two occupants discussing, with
quite sublime ignorance, the members of the Punch
staff' — this does not show ill-feeling. And it was
clearly an act of friendship when Thackeray ran up to
town one day from Leamington, where he was lectur-
ing, announcing on his return to the astonished
George Hodder, ''We've got the little man in" — and
then, noticing his bewilderment, explaining: "Why,
Jerrold ; we've elected him a member of the Reform
Club." Jerrold's wit had made him many enemies
and Thackeray had gone up to use his influence to
secure his election. Again, Thackeray rejoiced when
he heard of the increased popularity which Lloyd's
Newspaper attained under Jerrold's editorship, and
then characteristically declared, "I am quite pleased
with myself at finding myself pleased at men getting
on in the world." At Jerrold's death, too, he co-
operated with Dickens to raise a fund for the widow
and children, contributing for his share the lecture on
"Weekday Preachers," in which he made special and
appreciative reference to Jerrold and his writings. This
lecture was delivered on July 22, 1857, the day after
the declaration of the poll of the Oxford election in
which Thackeray was defeated, and the audience, on
the alert for some allusion to that event, was not dis-

^ Henry Vizetelly : Glances Back Through Seventy Years, Vol. I,
p. 286. - Authors' Miseries.

298 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

appointed, for the opening words of the discourse,
delivered with comical solemnity, were, "Walking
yesterday in the High Street of a certain ancient
city ..." '"'So began the lecturer," says the Times,
in its account of the lecture, *'and was interrupted by
a storm of laughter that deferred for some moments
the completion of the sentence."

Before leaving the subject of Thackeray's connection
with Punch, something must be said of his ballads, the
majority of which appeared in the pages of that paper.
It has been remarked that he was always rhyming in
private life, and he was devoted to the exercise. The
best papers of the little brochure, " The Second Funeral
of Napoleon," are undoubtedly those given over to
'* The Chronicle of the Drum " ; but as his literary
career progressed poetry took its place in his life as a
relaxation, for the writing of verses was with him a
labour of love. Yet though as a rule he wrote with
ease, he was a severe critic of his work, and after
publication would sometimes entirely revise the poem.
There are two distinct versions of "The King of
Brentford " ; and no less than three times he materially
altered "Lucy's Birthday.**

Thackeray wrote in all about one hundred poems.
A fifth of this number were based upon political sub-
jects, and of these there is little to say, save that most
of them were composed in haste, often with the printer's
devil at the door. Their merit consists in a certain
humour, but their interest was for the day : they
amused the generation for which they were written,
and so achieved their object. Clever they are un-

i8s4] "BOW STREET BALLADS" 299

doubtedly, but few of them bear the hall-mark of the
author's individuality ; and, in all probability, the sub-
jects were selected, or at least suggested, by the editor
of Punch.

The same defects, though in a lesser degree, are
noticeable in ''The Bow Street Ballads." They also
convey in the reading the impression that they were
written to order ; and not all the fun of Policeman X 54's
queer spelling and phrasing makes them quite ac-
ceptable, although here and there the personality of
Thackeray emerges from the motley. Notably is this
the case in "Jacob Omnium's Hoss," where he gives
rein to his indignation against " Pallis Court," with its
monstrous scale of costs : —

Come down from that tribewen

Thou Shameless and Unjust ;
Thou Swindle, picking pockets in

The name of Truth august ;
Come down, thou hoary Blasphemy,

For die thou shalt and must.

And go it, Jacob Homnium,

And ply your iron pen.
And rise up Sir John Jervis,

And shut me up that den ;
That sty for fattening lawyers in

On the bones of honest men.

The "Lyra Hibernica" are better. Carlyle said
these Irish ballads were the best things Thackeray ever
wrote, and he would quote them and laugh heartily at
them. The fun is more spontaneous, the humour of a
higher class ; the quaint rhymes amuse, and the swing
of the verses delight. It is not worth while, however,

If

300 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

to argue the question of the accuracy of Thackeray's
attempt to present phonetically the Irishman's pronun-
ciation of the English language. The catalogue of the
exhibits of the Great Exhibition is delightful, and the
apparent ease of the versification is not excelled even
in the wonderful " White Squall."

There's holy saints

And window paints
By Maydiayval Pugin ;

Alhamborough Jones

Did paint the tones
Of yellow and gambouge in.

There's Statue bright
Of marble white,

Of silver and of copper ;
And some in zinc,
And some, I think,

That isn't over proper.

For them genteels

Who ride on wheels,
There's plenty to indulge 'em ;

There's Droskys snug

From Paytersbug
And vayhicles from Bulgium.

There's Cabs on Stands

And Shandthry-danns ;
There's Waggons from New York here ;

There's Lapland sleighs

Have crossed the seas.
And Jaunting Cyars from Cork here.

i8s4] "A SIXPENNY TALENT" 301

Thackeray never attempted the *' big bow-wow " kind
of poetry. From the first he recognised his limitations:
and to the end was content to be bound by them. He
might have said with Locker-Lampson, "My aim is
humble. I used the ordinary metres and rhymes, the
simplest language and ideas, I hope flavoured with
individuality. I strove not to be obscure, not to be flat,
above all, not to be tedious." As, indeed, Thackeray
said to the author of the delightful "London Lyrics" :
" I have a sixpenny talent (or gift) and so have you ;
ours is small beer, but, you see, it is the right tap. "^
It is worthy of remark how much in common the verses
of these men had. The poems of Locker-Lampson —
that author thought Thackeray almost as humorous as
Swift, and sometimes almost as tender as Cowper —
often suggest those of the more famous writer. The
dainty "St. James's Street" recalls "The Ballad of
Bouillabaisse," as "Gertrude's Necklace" conjures up
memory of "Lucy's Birthday." Both were artists to
the finger-tips, both had a keen appreciation of humour;
but Thackeray, though he could be dainty, if usually
less elegant, was rather more virile.

Thackeray was strongly imbued with the sense
of parody. He wrote " The Willow Tree," and, seeing
the opportunity, burlesqued it forthwith. "Larry
O'Toole" from "Phil Fogarty " could easily be mis-
taken for one of the spirited songs with which Lever
adorned his brilliant but more or less unreal stories of
Ireland. Again, the songs of the forties and fifties
were no more sensible than the majority of similar
compositions to-day, and they offered themselves as a

' My Confidences^ p. 300.

302 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

good butt for ridicule. Thackeray started a series of
parodies with the Mayfair and Oriental Love Songs ;
but when the turn came of the Domestic Song, the
man's sentiment overcame his intention. Though pre-
faced by a burlesque prose introduction — omitted in
most reprints — there is little or nothing of parody in
the verse. Humour there is in plenty, but it is that
tender humour that is not far away from tears ; there is
loving kindness in every line ; and the picture of the
lonely bachelor thinking of the fair young girl whose
presence had for a moment relieved the gloom of the
dull chambers does not create more mirth than is to be
found in a sad smile.

It was but a moment she sat in this place,

She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face !

A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair,

And she sat there, and bloomed in my cane-bottomed chair.

And so I have valued my chair ever since.

Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince ;

Sweet Fanny, my patroness, sweet, I declare

The queen of my heart and my cane-bottomed chair.

When the candles burn low, and the company's gone,
In the silence of night as I sit here alone —
I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair —
My Fanny I see in my cane-bottomed chair.

She comes from the past and revisits my room ;
She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom.
So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair.
And yonder she sits in my cane-bottomed chair.

In the same vein of tenderness is the even better-
known " Ballad of Bouillabaisse," written in Paris

i8S4] "THE CHRONICLE OF THE DRUM" 303

after a visit to the restaurant where the author and his
wife and friends had been frequent visitors ; and the
exquisite *' Mahogany Tree," one of the author's favour-
ites, which many a time he sang.

The most ambitious, as well as the longest, of Thack-
eray's poems was *' The Great Cossack Epic of Deme-
trius Rigmarolovicz," founded, so the prefatory note
informs us, on the legend of St. Sophia, whose statue
is said to have walked of its own accord up the river
Dnieper to take its station in the Church of Kiew. It
is good fooling, and amusing enough, but it does not
bear in any marked degree the imprint of Thackeray's
individuality. It was followed by "The Chronicle of
the Drum," which is on quite a different plane, and is
as good as anything Thackeray ever wrote in verse. It
is the narrative of a French drummer, whose ancestors
for the last four generations had rattled the sticks from
the days of Henri of Navarre. In Germany, Flanders,

and Holland

. . . my grandsire was ever victorious,
My grandsire and Marshal Turenne ;

his father was at Fontenoy and lost his life at Quebec ;
while the story-teller was present at Yorktown, helped
to drum down the Bastille, and fought for the Republic
in the days of the Terror.

We had taken the head of King Capet,

We called for the blood of his wife ;
Undaunted she came to the scaffold,

And bared her fair neck to the knife.
As she felt the foul fingers that touched her,

She shrank but she deigned not to speak,
She looked with a royal disdain,

And died with a blush in her cheek !

304 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1847-

He was in the Napoleonic army and a stout partisan of
the Emperor. He was at Marengo, Jena, and Auster-
litz ; the Hundred Days found him at his post ; and
he was present at Waterloo.

A curse on those British assassins,

Who ordered the slaughter of Ney ;
A curse on Sir Hudson who tortured

The life of our hero away.
A curse on all Russians — I hate them —

On all Prussians and Austrian fry ;
And, O ! but I pray we may meet them.

And fight them again ere I die.

" The Chronicle of the Drum " presents a fine picture
of the wild enthusiasm of the French veterans for their
Corsican leader and of the deep-seated hatred of

the red-coated English,

Whose bayonets helped our undoing.

The drummer cares nothing for the cause, but every-
thing for the battle ; fighting was in his blood, for he
loved his country and believed in his General as in his
God ; yet even when fierce excitement had the better of
him, he could spare a thought for the poor woman
waiting anxiously for news of her husband, who had
marched with the army against Wolfe.

I think I can see my poor mammy

With me in her hand as she waits.
And our regiment, slowly retreating,

Pours back through the citadel gates.
Dear mammy ! she looks in their faces,

And asks if her husband has come?
— He is lying all cold on the glacis,

And will never more beat on the drum.

1854] BALLADS 305

This splendid martial poem contains much satirical
humour and just the amount of underlying pathos that
adds to the beauty ; while it has many of the qualities
that later were to combine in the making of the wonder-
ful, ironical ** Barry Lyndon."

*' It is easy enough to knock off that nonsense about
Policeman X," Thackeray said ; " but to write a good
occasional verse is a rare intellectual feat." Yet this,
too, he accomplished. He possessed the wit and the
fancy, the humour and tenderness, the refinement,
without all of which qualities " the real thing" cannot
be produced. Nor was the lyrical strain absent from
his composition. His verse is easy and possesses the
essential merit of apparent spontaneity. He was almost
invariably humorous ; yet there was always something
more than mere fun. Frequently he was satirical,
occasionally he was indignant ; sometimes, as in
**The End of the Play" and "Vanitas Vanitatum,"
he was didactic ; usually he was tender and pathetic.
He could be gay ; he could sprinkle his verses with
playful or ironic humour ; and upon all his best work
his personality is impressed. Of the touch of originality
he was proud: "Tom Taylor wrote those verses in
Punch,'''' he replied to a question of Dr. John Brown.
** When I strike the lyre I think it's to a more original
tune than that; it's not the best music, but it's my own."
Most of his ballads are good ; all are readable, and
many are possessed of distinction. As has been
said, his rhymes are often appalling, and his metre is not
always perfect ; but his language was as simple and
direct as in his prose writings. If he was not under-
rating his talent when he spoke of it as small beer, he
I— J^

3o6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1850

certainly was not guilty of an error of judgment
when he declared it was the right tap. No "Lyra
Elegantiarum " is complete without the insertion of
"The Mahogany Tree", "The Ballad of Bouilla-
baisse," and " Peg of Limavaddy " ; and no anthology
of light verse may omit " The Chronicle of the Drum."

CHAPTER XVI

"PENDENNIS" (1849-1850)

Thackeray living- at No. 88, St. James's Street — takes a house, No. 13
(now 16), Young Street, Kensington — and has his daughters brought
to him there — the greater part of "Vanity Fair" written in that
house — his acquaintance with Charlotte Bronte — her appreciation of
him — a dismal dinner party — " The Last Sketch" — Thackeray dissatis-
fied with his financial prospects — endeavours to obtain the secretary-
ship of the Post Office — and, failing, tries to get a magistracy —
Horace Smith — the Misses Smith and " Pendennis " — the publication
of "Pendennis" begun November 1848 — interrupted by a serious
illness — some opinions of the earlier parts of the novel — Thackeray's
recovery — " Pendennis" autobiographical in parts — some prototypes
of the characters in "Vanity Fair" — of Sir Pitt Crawley, Lord
Steyne, and Becky Sharp — some prototypes of the characters in
"Pendennis" — of Warrington, Foker, and Shandon — "The Dignity
of Literature " — Thackeray on the responsibility of an author — the
literary man's point of honour.

THACKERAY had given up his room in
Jermyn Street when he went to Cairo, and
on his return had rented chambers at No. 88,
St. James's Street, the house at the south-
west corner of that street, with a frontage in Cleveland
Row, and facing that portion of the palace which is
between the Colour Court and the Ambassador's
Court. It was next door to the site upon which had
stood the old coffee-house, where the fashionable wits
of the eighteenth century foregathered, and Swift,
not too far away from Esther Vanhomrigh in Suffolk

307

3o8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

Street, wrote so frequently to sweet Stella. " He
never sends away a letter to her but he begins a new
one the same day. He can't bear to let go her little
hand as it were."^ Here Thackeray remained for two
years, until the summer of 1846, when he made for
himself and his daughters a home at No. 13 (now 16),
Young Street, Kensington. He was delighted with
the house, and thought its two semi-tower-like embra-
sures gave it the air of a feudal castle. "I'll have
a flagstaff put over the coping of the wall," he said,
laughing, ''and I'll hoist a standard when I'm at
home." His mother brought the children from Paris
in the late autumn of 1846; and when things were
settled she returned to her husband, and her place was
taken by her mother, who remained until her death
two years later. Thenceforth Thackeray had his
"little girls" constantly with him; and whenever he
could snatch an hour or an afternoon, they went for
those little outings which he enjoyed as much as they.
He was never again separated from them for any
length of time except when he went to America ; and
from this time forth, until he was taken from them, so
far as possible they shared the pleasures of his life.

It was when passing by the Young Street house in
later days with Fields, the American publisher, that
Thackeray exclaimed, with mock gravity: "Down on
your knees, you rogue, for here ' Vanity Fair ' was
penned ; and I will go down with you, for I have a
high opinion of that little production myself." The
house, too, has an association with another great
novelist, Charlotte Bronte. Most interesting is the

' English Humourists — Swift.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

From an unpublished zvater-coloiir draiving hy II '. Dnnuuiciid, /Sjo

Reproduced l<y ptriiiission of Major W'illiavi //. Lambert

1850] CHARLOTTE BRONTE 309

story of the acquaintance between these notabiHties.
It has already been mentioned that **Currer Bell"
dedicated the second edition of "Jane Eyre" to
Thackeray, and Thackeray later acknowledged the
compliment, before even he knew her name or sex, by
sending her a copy of ''Vanity Fair" inscribed with
his "grateful regards." Charlotte Bronte had been
much disturbed by the widespread rumour that she
had drawn Thackeray and his wife as Mr. and Mrs.
Rochester, though she was indifferent to those other
lying reports that said she had been a governess in his
family and subsequently his mistress ; and when she
came to London in December 1849, she eagerly
accepted the offer of George Smith to introduce
Thackeray to her.

When they did meet, she was much astonished. As
the dedication to the second edition of "Jane Eyre"
shows, she had expected to find a fervent prophet, and
Thackeray was simply a quiet, well-bred gentleman,
with nothing in appearance to distinguish him from
hosts of other men. A delightful story has been
related of their meeting. It is worthy of being re-
peated, for, though probably apocryphal, it is amus-
ingly true of the lady's attitude to her hero. " Behold,
a lion Cometh up out of the North ! " she quoted under
her breath, as Thackeray entered the drawing-room.
Thackeray, being informed of this, remarked: "Oh,
Lord ! and I'm nothing but a poor devil of an English-
man, ravenous for my dinner." At dinner. Miss
Bronte was placed opposite him. "And," said
Thackeray, " I had the miserable humiliation of seeing
her ideal of me disappearing, as everything went into

3IO WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-
my mouth, and nothing came out of it, until, at last,
as I took my fifth potato, she leaned across, with
clasped hands and tearful eyes, and breathed implor-
ingly, ' Oh, Mr. Thackeray ! Don't ! ' "

Thackeray was an enigma to Charlotte Bronte ; she
could not understand him ; she was never certain
whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest ; but she
was determined to take him seriously. "All you say
of Mr. Thackeray is most graphic and characteristic,"
she wrote to Ellen Nussey, on December 19. "He
stirs in me both sorrow and anger. Why should he
lead so harassing a life? Why should his mocking
tongue so perversely deny the better feelings of his
better moods? . . . Mr. Thackeray is a man of very
quiet, simple demeanour ; he is, however, looked up
to with some awe and even distrust. . . . Thackeray is
a Titan of mind. His presence and powers impress
one deeply in an intellectual sense ; I do not know him
or see him as a man. All the others are subordinate.
... I felt sufficiently at my ease with all but
Thackeray ; with him, I was fearfully stupid."^

Charlotte Bronte came again to London in the
following June, and Thackeray called on her at George
Smith's house, and the host, who was alone with them,
afterwards described the interview as "a queer scene."
" I suppose it was," the lady wrote to Ellen Nussey.
"The giant sat before me: I was moved to speak
of some of his shortcomings (literary, of course) ; one
by one the faults came into my head, and one by one
I brought them out, and sought some explanation or
defence. He did defend himself, like a great Turk

^ Clement Shorter : The Brotites.

l,M)\\ 10), \'nL\i. .-^Il.l.l.l, lvl,.\.-.i;
il'/it-rc Tkackfray lived, /S^O-lSjj

i8so] AN UNSUCCESSFUL PARTY 311

and heathen ; that is to say, the excuses were often
worse than the crime itself. The matter ended in
decent amity ; if all be well I am to dine at his house
this evening (June 12)."^ The dinner, it must be con-
fessed, was not a success. The party included Mrs.
Crowe, the Brookfields, the Carlyles, Mrs. Procter and
her daughter, and Mrs. Elliot and Miss Perry, and
it should have been a bright gathering. Instead it
was a gloomy and silent evening, conversation lan-
guished, the guest in whose honour all were assembled
said nothing, and Thackeray, too much depressed by
the failure of the entertainment, but little. Mrs.
Brookfield made an effort. "Do you like London,
Miss Bronte?" she asked; then, after a pause, the other
said gravely, ''Yes — no." Charlotte Bronte was the
first to leave, and so soon as she had gone Thackeray
slipped out of the drawing-room, and his eldest
daughter was surprised to see him open the front door
with his hat on. "He put his fingers to his lips,
w^alked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly
behind him. When I went back to the drawing-room
again, the ladies asked me where he was. I vaguely
answered that I thought he was coming back," Lady
Ritchie has written. "Long years afterwards, Mrs.
Procter, with a good deal of humour, described the
situation — the ladies, who had all come expecting so
much delightful conversation, and the gloom and con-
straint, and how finally, overwhelmed by the situation,
my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and
gone off to his club. The ladies waited, wondered,
and finally departed also ; and as we were going up to
1 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 143.

312 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

bed with our candles, after everybody was gone, I

remember two pretty Miss L 's, in shiny silk

dresses, arriving full of expectation. . . . We still
said we thought our father would soon be back,

but the Miss L 's declined to wait upon the

chance, laughed, and drove away again almost im-
mediately."^

Once more Charlotte Bronte and Thackeray met, and
again a letter of the lady tells the tale. '' I came here
(London) on Wednesday, being summoned a day
sooner than I expected, in order to be in time for
Thackeray's second lecture, which was delivered on
Thursday afternoon. This, as you may suppose, was
a great treat, and I was glad not to miss it," she wrote
to Ellen Nussey, on June 2, 185 1. "As our party left
the (lecture) Hall, he (Thackeray) stood at the entrance;
he saw and knew me, and lifted his hat ; he offered his
hand in passing, and uttered the words, ' Qit'eii dttes-
vous?^ — a question eminently characteristic and re-
minding me, even in this his moment of triumph,
of that inquisitive restlessness, that absence of what
I considered desirable self-control, which were among
his faults. He should not have cared just then to ask
what I thought, or what anybody thought ; but he did
care, and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive
to repress, his wish. Well ! if I blamed his over-
eagerness, I liked his naivete. I would have praised
him ; I had plenty of praise in my heart ; but, alas !
no words on my lips. Who has words at the right
moment? I stammered lame expressions; but was
truly glad when some other people, coming up with

1 Chapter from Some Memoirs, p. 63.

iSso] "THE LAST SKETCH" 313

profuse congratulations, covered my deficiency by
their redundancy."^

Indeed, though intensely appreciative, Charlotte
Bronte proved so severe a critic, both of himself
and his works, that Thackeray was not quite pleased
with the various letters (printed in Mrs. Gaskell's
"Life") in which she expressed her opinions, and
he said so much in his ''Last Sketch," prefixed to
"Emma," when, under his editorship, that fragment
appeared in the Cornhill Magazine.

I can only say of this lady, vidi tantiim. I saw
her first just as I rose out of an illness from which
I had never thought to recover. I remember the
trembling little frame, the little hand, the great
honest eyes. An impetuous honesty seemed to me
to characterise the woman. Twice, I recollect, she
took me to task for what she held to be errors in
doctrine. Once about Fielding we had a disputation.
She spoke her mind out. She jumped to conclusions
(I have smiled at one or two passages in the " Bio-
graphy " in which my own disposition or behaviour
form the subject of talk). She formed conclusions
that might be wrong, and built up whole theories of
character upon them. New to the London world, she
entered it with an independent indomitable spirit
of her own ; and judged of contemporaries, and
especially spied out arrogance or affectation, with
extraordinary keenness of vision. She was angry
with her favourites if their conduct or conversation
fell below her ideal. Often she seemed to be judging
the London folks prematurely ; but perhaps the
city is rather angry at being judged. It fancied
an austere little Joan of Arc marching in upon us,
and rebutting our easy lives, our easy morals.
She gave me the impression of being a very pure
and lofty, and high-minded person. A great and

* Clement Shorter: The Brontes, Vol. II, p. 214.

314 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be
with her always. Such, in our brief interview, she
appeared to me.

Though Thackeray was flourishing, he was not
satisfied with his prospects, for he feared his popularity
might diminish. He was well aware that the earnings
of a man of letters are precarious and he was anxious
to make provision for his mother and stepfather, for his
children, and for himself, should he, in spite of the
physicians' opinion, live to be an old man. He had
himself called to the bar on May 26, 1848, of course
not with any intention to practise, but so as to be able
to accept, if fate would only give him a chance, one of
the many appointments for which only a barrister is
eligible. He heard towards the end of 1848 of a post
that he thought would suit him.

But now comes the real and important part of this
note [he wrote to Lady Blessington]. There will be a
place vacant in the Post Office soon^ that of Assistant
Secretary, at present held by Mr. James Campbell.
What a place for a man of letters ! I think if Lord
Clanricarde would give it to me I would satisfy my
employers, and that my profession would be pleased
by hearing of the employment of one of us. I
wonder might I write to him, or is there any kind
of person who would advocate my cause?

Lady Blessington interested herself on his behalf,
but her efforts were in vain. *' Another man has got
it and deserves it too," Thackeray informed her, but
he did not abandon hope of receiving an appointment
under Government. In the next year he made another
attempt to obtain a vacant magistracy, but again,

I

i8so] "PENDENNIS" 315

though this time backed by the influence of Monckton
Milnes, he was unsuccessful.

You are a good and lovable adviser and M.P.,
but I cannot get the Magistrate's place, not being
eligible [he wrote to his friend]. I was only called to
the Bar last year, and they require barristers of seven
years' standing. Time will qualify me, however,
and I hope to be able to last six years in the literary
world ; for though I shall write, I daresay, very
badly, yet the public won't find it out for some time,
and I shall live on my past reputation. It is a pity
to be sure. If I could get a place and rest, I think I
could do something better than I have done, and
leave a good and lasting book behind me ; but Fate
is overruling. I have to thank L. for his kind letter,
and to beg him to remember me if an opportunity
occurs of serving me. I wonder whether Lord
Palmerston could? But I would rather be in London.
Thank you for thinking of me, and believe me, I am
grateful.^

Having only his pen to rely on, Thackeray, who
had taken his daughters for a holiday abroad, now
went with them to Brighton, where he proposed to
begin '* Pendennis," the publication of which was to
begin in a month. He numbered among his friends
resident there Horace, part-author of "Rejected Ad-
dresses,"

That good, severe old man, who went out of the
world in charity with all in it, and having shown
through his life, as far as I know it, quite a delight-
ful love of God's works and creatures ; a true,
loyal, Christian man.^

^ Wemyss Reid : Life of Lord Houghton, Vol. I, p. 247.
' A. H. Beavan : fames and Horace Smith, p. 305.

3i6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

To Smith's house in Cavendish Place he went soon
after his arrival at Brighton, and confessed to the
Misses Smith that he was in despair, he had to begin
a new novel without delay, and had not an idea ; so
then and there they told him a story of Brighton life.
In return for this favour, he christened the heroine
Laura, after his hostesses' married sister, Mrs. Round,
who, when the story was finished, declared, indig-
nantly, " I'll never speak to you again, Mr. Thackeray.
You know I always meant to marry Bluebeard " — Lady
Rockminster's name for George Warrington.

The first number of " Pendennis," issued by Messrs,
Bradbury and Evans, appeared in November 1848,
and the publication of the story was continued month
by month until the following September, when Thack-
eray was ill, so ill, indeed, during September, October,
and November that it seemed only too probable that he
would never rise from the sick-bed. Dr. Merriman
attended him, and also Dr. Elliotson, to whom "Pen-
dennis," on its publication in book-form, was dedi-
cated. It was not until December that Thackeray's
recovery was assured ; and on the 7th of that month
Edward FitzGerald wrote to Frederick Tennyson : " I
saw poor Thackeray in London, getting slowly better
of a bilious fever that had nearly killed him. . . .
People in general thought ''Pendennis" got dull as
it got on ; and I confess I thought so too : he would
do well to take the opportunity of his illness to dis-
continue it altogether. He told me last June he himself
was tired of it, and must not his readers naturally
tire too?"

Fortunately, Thackeray, after being rescued from

i85o] THACKERAY ON "PENDENNIS" 317
illness, was saved from his friends, and the twelfth
number of "Pendennis" appeared in January of the
new year. FitzGerald, re-reading the novel years later,
altered his opinion. << I like 'Pendennis' much," he
then said; *'and Alfred (Tennyson) said he thought
it was quite delicious; * it seemed to him so mature,'
he said. You can imagine Alfred saying this over
one's fire, spreading his great hand out." Thackeray,
who had a habit of passing remarks on his books, said
of this one : *' I can't say I think much of ' Pendennis '
— at least of the execution, it certainly drags about the
middle ; but I had an attack of illness at the time I
reached that part of the book, and could not make it
any better than I did. But how well-written it is ! "
Well-written it is certainly, and wonderfully interest-
ing, for, like "Vanity Fair," beginning quietly, it
gathered force and volume as it proceeded.

"Pendennis," as has already been said, is so auto-
biographical in parts that most readers acquainted
with the social history of the forties of the last
century endeavour to trace the " originals," and
the curiosity that suggests the enquiry, though
it may not be legitimate, is at least natural. It must
be borne in mind, however, that Thackeray never
wilfully copied anybody ; he was, as George Augustus
Sala put it, "only gently and skilfully assimilative
and combinative in his characters, which passed
through the alembic of his study and observation."
In "Vanity Fair" the author declared that Sir Pitt
Crawley was the only exact portrait in the book : it
has lately been asserted that a former Lord Rolle sat
for the character ; the prototype of "the richly dressed

3i8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

figure of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense
has been spared," Lord Steyne, undoubtedly was
suggested by the second and third Marquises of
Hertford, and the inimitable Becky was drawn from
the companion of a wealthy and selfish old lady who
lived in the neighbourhood of Kensington Square.
How far Arthur Pendennis resembled Thackeray has
already been discussed, but for the statement that in
this story more than any other he drew upon his ac-
quaintances there is the author's authority.

You will find much to remind you of old talks and
faces — of William John O'Connell, Jack Sheehan
and Andrew Arcedeckne — in this book [he wrote to
George Moreland Crawford, who had nursed him
through the illness that nearly left the story a
fragment]. There is something of you in Warring-
ton, but he is not fit to hold a candle to you, for,
taking you all round, you are the most genuine
fellow that ever strayed from a better world into this.
You don't smoke, and he is a confirmed smoker of
tobacco. Bordeaux and port were your favourites
at 'The Deanery' and 'The Garrick,' and War. is
always guzzling beer. But he has your honesty,
and like you could not posture if he tried. You had
a strong affinity for the Irish. May you some day
find an Irish girl to lead you to matrimony. There's
no such good wife as a daughter of Erin.^

"Merry Andrew" Arcedeckne, a member of the
Garrick Club, sat for Foker, and it is probably this
portrait that was the cause of the author's rejection at
the Travellers' Club in 1856. The ballot there is by
the members and not by the committee, and the
majority gave the reason for their action that they

1 Critic (N. Y.), December 26, 1885.

i85o] THACKERAY'S ORIGINALS 319

were afraid of seeing themselves in some future novel.
It is said that Arcedeckne was often called " Phoca " ;
hence the name by which he is immortalised ; and that
he was small in stature, eccentric in his mode of dress-
ing, drove mail-coaches as an amateur, loved fighting
dogs, game-cocks, and the prize-ring, and had a large
estate in Norfolk. Cordy Jeaffreson states that Foker
was no caricature, and that the character was a genial
and flattering portrait of the prototype. Arcedeckne
resembled Foker, however, in so far that he, too, was
no fool. Thackeray had treated him badly by holding
him up to ridicule, but he was too sensible to complain :
none the less he contrived that the laughter should
not all be on one side. Arcedeckne was that member of
the Garrick whose presence and speech. Dean Hole
observed, ''seemed to irritate Thackeray, and who
found pleasure in exercising his power as a gadfly
on a thoroughbred horse." One night in the club
smoking-room Thackeray was in the middle of a story
when Arcedeckne entered : Thackeray saw him, hesi-
tated, stopped : whereupon his persecutor with bland
smile and gracious manner encouraged him to continue ;
"Proceed, sweet warbler," he said, "thy story in-
terests me." It was Arcedeckne, too, who congratulated
Thackeray on one of his lectures : " Brayvo ! Thack,
my boy ! Uncommon good show. But it'll never go
•without a planner ! "

The noblemen of the staff of the original Pall Mall
Gazette in "Pendennis" were Lords William and
Henry Lennox and a brother of the Duke of St.
Albans, and of the last Jack Sheehan used to say,
*' His name of Beauclerk is a misnomer, for he is

320 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

always in a fog, and never clear about anything."
Many of the " Fraserians" sat for the literary portraits
in *' Pendennis," the ferocious Bludyer, stout old Tom
Sergeant, and brilliant Charles Shandon. It has been
suggested that Jack Sheehan may have been the
original Shandon, but the character was probably
drawn, in part at least, from Dr. Maginn. But
Maginn was a greater than Shandon. He may have
dictated the prospectus of some Pall Mall Gazette from
the Fleet Prison ; he may have written — indeed, he did
write — articles that are models of virulent abuse ; but
he was a parodist of no mean merit, and his Shake-
spearian essays and his Latin versions of ''Chevy
Chase " and other ballads extorted praise even from his
enemies.

These and other literary portraits in "Pendennis"
brought in their train great annoyance to Thackeray,
for many members of the Fourth Estate took umbrage,
and declared that the author had set out to hold up to
contempt workers in literature and journalism. So
long as the matter was discussed at the Clubs,
Thackerary took no notice of the comments ; but when
the abuse of him was transferred to the newspapers, in
justice to himself he was compelled to put his case
before the public.

In a leading article of your journal of Thursday,
the 3rd instant, you commented upon literary pen-
sions and the status of literary men in this country,
and illustrated your argument by extracts from the
story of "Pendennis," at present in course of pub-
lication [he wrote to the Editor of the Morning
Chronicle, on January 8, 1850]. You have received
my writings with so much kindness that, if you have

i8so] "THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE" 321

occasion to disapprove of them or the author, I can't
question your right to blame me, or doubt for a
moment the friendliness and honesty of my critic ;
and however I might dispute the justice of your
verdict in my case, I had proposed to submit to it in
silence, being, indeed, very quiet in my conscience
with regard to the charge made against me. But
another newspaper of high character and repute
takes occasion to question the principles advocated
in your article of Thursday, arguing in favour of
pensions for literary persons, as you argued against
them ; and the only point upon which the Examiner
and the Chronicle appear to agree unluckily regards
myself, who am offered up to general reprehension in
two leading articles by the two writers : by the latter
for "fostering a baneful prejudice " against literary
men ; by the former for "stooping to flatter" this
prejudice in the public mind, and condescending to
caricature (as is too often my habit) my literary
fellow-labourers in order to pay court to "the non-
literary class." The charges of the Examiner 2ig2i\\\^\.
a man who has never, to his knowledge, been
ashamed of his profession, or (except for its dulness)
of any single line from his pen — grave as they are —
are, I hope, not proven. "To stoop to flatter" any
class is a novel accusation brought against my
writings ; and as for my scheme " to pay court to the
non-literary class by disparaging my literary fellow-
labourers," it is a design which would exhibit a
degree, not only of baseness, but of folly, upon my
part, of which I trust I am not capable. The editor
of the Examiner may, perhaps, occasionally write,
like other authors, in a hurry, and not be aware of
the conclusions to which some of his sentences may
lead. If I stoop to flatter anybody's prejudice for
some interested motives of my own, I am no more
nor less than a rogue and a cheat : which deduction
from the Examiner' s premises I will not stoop to
contradict, because the premises themselves are
simply absurd. I deny that the considerable body
of our countrymen described by the Examiner as

I.— Y

322 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

*'the non-literary class " has the least gratification in
witnessing the degradation or disparagement of
literary men. Why accuse ''the non-literary class"
of being so ungrateful? If the writings of an
author give a reader pleasure or profit, surely the
latter will have a favourable opinion of the person
who so benefits him. What intelligent man, of
what political views, would not receive with respect
and welcome that writer of the Examiner of whom
your paper once said that he "made all England
laugh and think "? Who would deny to that brilliant
wit, that polished satirist, his just tribute of respect
and admiration ? Does any man who has written a
book worth reading — any poet, novelist, man of
science — lose reputation by his character for genius
or for learning? Does he not, on the contrary, get
friends, sympathy, applause — money, perhaps? all
good and pleasant things in themselves, and not
ungenerously awarded, as they are honestly won.
That generous faith in men of letters, that kindly
regard in which the whole reading nation holds
them, appear to me to be so clearly shown in our
country every day that to question them would be as
absurd as, permit me to say for my part, it would be
ungrateful. What is it that fills mechanics' insti-
tutes in the great provincial towns when literary men
are invited to attend their festivals? Has not every
literary man of mark his friends and his circle, his
hundreds, or his tens of thousands, of readers? And
has not every one had from these constant and affect-
ing testimonials of the esteem in which they hold
him. It is of course one writer's lot, from the nature
of his subject or of his genius, to command thej
sympathies or awaken the curiosity of many morei
readers than shall choose to listen to another author ;
but surely all get their hearing. The literary pro-
fession is not held in disrepute; nobody wants toj
disparage it ; no man loses his social rank, whatever]
it may be, by practising it. On the contrary, the'
pen gives a place in the world to men who had none
before — a fair place, fairly achieved by their genius,

i8so] "THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE" 323

as any other degree of eminence is by any other kind
of merit. Literary men need not, as it seems to me,
be in the least querulous about their position any
more, or want the pity of anybody. The money-
prizes which the chief among them get are not so
high as those which fall to men of other callings — to
bishops, or to judges, or to opera-singers and actors;
nor have they received stars and garters as yet, or
peerages and governorships of islands, such as fall
to the lot of military officers. The rewards of the
profession are not to be measured by the money
standard ; for one man spends a life of learning and
labour on a book which does not pay the printer's
bill, and another gets a little fortune by a few light
volumes. But, putting the money out of the ques-
tion, I believe that the social estimation of the man
of letters is as good as it deserves to be, and as good
as that of any other professional man. With respect
to the question in debate between you and the
Examiner as to the propriety of public rewards and
honours for literary men, I don't see why men of
letters should not very cheerfully coincide with Mr.
Examiner in accepting all the honours, places, and
prizes which they can get. The amount of such as
will be awarded to them will not, we may be pretty
sure, impoverish the country much ; and if it is the
custom of the State to reward by money, or
titles of honour, or stars and garters of any sort,
individuals who do the country service, and if in-
dividuals are gratified at having *'Sir" or ** My
lord " appended to their names, or stars and ribands
hooked on their coats and waistcoats, as men most
undoubtedly are, and as their wives, families, and
relations are, there can be no reason why men of
letters should not have the chance, as well as men
of the robe or the sword ; or why, if honour and
money are good for one profession, they should not
be good for another. No man in other callings
thinks himself degraded by receiving a reward from
his Government ; nor, surely, need the literary man
be more squeamish about pensions, and ribands, and

324 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

titles, than the ambassador, or general, or judge.
Every European State but ours rewards its men of
letters ; the American Government gives them their
full share of its small patronage ; and if Americans,
why not Englishmen ? If Pitt Crawley is disappointed
at not getting a riband on returning from his diplo-
matic post at Pumpernickel, if General O'Dowd is
pleased to be called Sir Hector O'Dowd, k.c.b., and
his wife at being denominated my Lady O'Dowd, are
literary men to be the only persons exempt from
vanity, and is it to be a sin in them to covet honour?
And now, with regard to the charge against myself
of fostering baneful prejudices against our calling —
to which I no more plead guilty than I should think
Fielding would have done if he had been accused
of a design to bring the Church into contempt by
describing Parson Trulliber — permit me to say that
before you deliver sentence it would be as well if you
had waited to hear the whole of the argument. Who
knows what is coming in the future numbers of the
work which has incurred your displeasure and the
Examiner's? and whether you, in accusing me of
prejudice, and the Examiner (alas !) of swindling
and flattering the public, have not been premature?
Time and the hour may solve this mystery, for which
the candid reader is referred "to our next." That
I have a prejudice against running into debt, and
drunkenness and disorderly life, and against quackery
and falsehood in my profession, I own ; and that
I like to have a laugh at those pretenders in it who
write confidential news about fashion and politics for
^xov\nQA2\ goh em ouches ; but lam not aware of feeling
any malice in describing this weakness, or of doing
anything wrong in exposing the former vices. Have
they never existed amongst literary men ? Have
their talents never been urged as a plea for improvi-
dence, and their very faults adduced as a consequence
of their genius? The only moral that I, as a writer,
wished to hint in the descriptions against which you
protest, was, that it was the duty of a literary man,
as well as any other, to practise regularity and

i85o] "THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE" 325

sobriety, to love his family, and to pay his trades-
men. Nor is the picture I have drawn "a caricature
which I condescend to," any more than it is a wilful
and insidious design on my part to flatter "the non-
literary class." If it be a caricature, it is the result
of a natural perversity of vision, not of an artful
desire to mislead ; but my attempt was to tell the
truth, and I meant to tell it not unkindly. I have
seen the bookseller from Bludyer robbed of his
books ; I have carried money, and from a noble
brother man-of-letters, to some one not unlike Shandon
in prison, and have watched the beautiful devotion
of his wife in that dreary place. Why are these
things not to be described, if they illustrate, as they
appear to me to do, that strange and awful struggle
of good and wrong which takes place in our hearts
and in the world? It may be that I worked out my
moral ill, or it may be possible that the critic of the
Examiner fails in apprehension. My efforts as an
artist come perfectly within his province as a censor ;
but when Mr. Examiner says of a gentleman that he
is "stooping to flatter a public prejudice" — which
public prejudice does not exist — I submit that he
makes a charge which is as absurd as it is unjust,
and am thankful that it repels itself. And, instead
of accusing the public of persecuting and disparag-
ing us as a class, it seems to me that men of letters
had best silently assume that they are as good as any
other gentlemen, nor raise piteous controversies upon
a question which all people of sense must take to be
settled. If I sit at your table, I suppose that I am
my neighbour's equal, as that he is mine. If I began
straightway with a protest of "Sir, I am a literary
man, but I would have you to know I am as good as
you," which of us is it that questions the dignity
of the literary profession — my neighbour, who would
like to eat his soup in quiet, or the man of letters,
who commences the argument? And I hope that
a comic writer, because he describes one author as
improvident and another as a parasite, may not only
be guiltless of a desire to vilify his profession, but

326 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

may really have its honour at heart. If there are no
spendthrifts or parasites amongst us, the satire be-
comes unjust ; but if such exist, or have existed, they
are as good subjects for comedy as men of other
callings. I never heard that the Bar felt itself ag-
grieved because Punch chose to describe Mr. Dunup's
notorious state of insolvency ; or that the picture
of Stiggins in Pickwick was intended as an insult
to all Dissenters ; or that all the attorneys in the
empire were indignant at the famous history of the
firm of " Quirk, Gammon, and Snap." Are we to be
passed over because we are faultless, or because we
cannot afford to be laughed at? And if every char-
acter in a story is to represent a class, not an
individual — if every bad figure is to have its obliged
contrast of a good one, and a balance of vice and
virtue is to be struck — novels, I think, would become
impossible, as they would be intolerably stupid and
unnatural, and there would be a lamentable end of
writers and readers of such compositions.^

Thackeray was the last person who should have been
charged with an attempt to lower the dignity of letters.
He never thought lightly of his profession, and again
and again he spoke of the sense of responsibility that
an author should feel.

What a place it is to hold in the affections of man !
What an awful responsibility hanging over a writer !
What man, holding such a place, and knowing that
his words go forth to vast congregations of mankind
— to grown folks, to their children, and, perhaps to
their children's children — but must think of his calling
with a solemn and a humble heart ! May love and
truth guide such a man always ! It is an awful prayer,
and may Heaven further its fulfilment !-

^ Morniyig Chronicle, January 12, 1850.

2 Mr. Brown's Letters — Brown the Younger at a Club.

i85o] A PRESENTATION 327

He expressed the same sentiments in his reply to Dr.
John Brown, when that gentleman, then unknown to
him, presented to him in 1848 a silver statuette of
Punch purchased by some Edinburgh admirers of his
genius.

The arms and the man arrived in safety yesterday,
and I am glad to know the names of two of the eighty
Edinburgh friends who have taken such a kind
method of showing their goodwill towards me. If
you are grati, I am gratior. Such tokens of regard
and sympathy are very precious to a writer like
myself, who has some difficulty still in making people
understand what you have been good enough to find
out in Edinburgh, that under the mask satirical there
walks about a sentimental gentleman who means not
unkindly to any mortal person. I can see exactly the
same expression under the vizard of my little friend
in silver, and hope some day to shake the whole octo-
gint by the hand gratos and gratas, and thank them
for their friendliness and regard. I think I had better
say no more on the subject, lest I should be tempted
into some enthusiastic writing of which I am afraid.
I assure you these tokens of what I can't help ac-
knowledging as popularity — make me humble as well
as grateful — and make me feel an almost awful sense
of the responsibility which falls upon a man in such a
station. Is it deserved or undeserved? Who is this
that sets up to preach to mankind and to laugh at
many of the things which men reverence? I hope I
shall be able to tell the truth always, and to see it
aright according to the eyes which God Almighty
gives me. And if, in the exercise of my calling, I get
friends, and find encouragement and sympathy, I
need not tell you how much I feel and am thankful
for this support. — Indeed, I can't reply lightly upon
this subject or feel otherwise than very grave when
men praise me as you do.^

1 Dr. John Brown : Thackeray {North British Review^ February 1864 ;
Vol. XI, pp. 224-5).

328 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1849-

Thackeray, however, in spite of his reverence for his
calling, had no patience with those who prated pom-
pously of their '' call " to the work ; and he would not
allow that even literary genius was an excuse for
license.

Men of letters cannot lay their hands on their
hearts, and say, "No, the fault" (that caused their
intellectual inferiors to sneer at them) "was Fortune's
and the indifferent world's, not Goldsmith's or Field-
ing's." There was no reason why Oliver should
always be thriftless ; why Fielding and Steele should
sponge upon their friends ; why Sterne should make
love to his neighbour's wives. Swift, for a long
while, was as poor as any wag that ever laughed, but
he owed no penny to his neighbour ; Addison, when
he wore his most threadbare coat, would hold his
head up and maintain his dignity; and, I dare vouch,
neither of these gentlemen, when they were ever so
poor, asked any man alive to pity their condition,
and have a regard to the weaknesses incidental to the
literary profession.^

He was always concerned to state what should be the
literary man's point of honour. In his struggling days
he set it forth as it appeared to him.

To do your work honestly, to amuse and instruct
your reader of to-day, to die when your time comes,
and go hence with as clean a breast as may be ; may
all these be yours and ours, by God's will. Let us be
content with our status as literary craftsmen, telling
the truth as far as may be, hitting no foul blow, con-
descending to no servile puffery, filling not a very
lofty, but a manly and honourable part.

^ A Brother of the Press on . . . the Chances of the Literary Profes-
sion {Fraser's Magazine, March 1846).

i85o] THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG 329

Towards the end of his life, when paying tribute to
Tom Hood, as when writing his beautiful appreciation
of Washington Irving and Macaulay, he returned to
the subject.

It may not be our chance, brother scribe, to be
endowed with such merit or rewarded with such
fame [he concluded his appreciation of Macaulay and
Washington Irving]. But the rewards of these men
are rewards paid to our service. We may not win the
baton or epaulettes, but God give us strength to
guard the honour of the flag !

It is pleasing to think that he who wrote these lines
was ever in the foremost rank of those who pressed
forward to fight for the honour of the flag.

CHAPTER XVII

"THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS" AND
(1851-1852)

ESMOND"

The last number of " Pendennis " issued — Thackeray proposes to
lecture — his friends' objections — a subject found in "The English
Humourists of the Eighteenth Century " — the first lecture at Willis's
Rooms — Thackeray's nervousness — accounts of his reading — the
audiences — a furore for the lectures — Thackeray invited to deliver
them in England and America — he writes "Esmond" — refuses to
contribute to "Social Zoologies" — George M. Smith secures the
pubHshing rights of "Esmond" — Thackeray's publishers — Thackeray's
comments on "Esmond" — " Esmond's" place in literature — Thack-
eray and his daughters go abroad — he returns to London — prepares
for the American lecture tour.

THE last number of "Pendennis" appeared
in December 1850, and early in the following
year it was announced that Thackeray would
make his dehiit as a lecturer. Anthony
Trollope in his monograph on Thackeray devoted
two pages of his short biographical chapter to the
consideration of the effect that lecturing might have
had upon Thackeray's fame as a writer, arguing for and
against the indignity of the proceedings, and eventually
concluding that the money made by the new venture
was " earned honestly and with the full approval of the
world around him."^ Who can doubt it? Even the
reputation of the author of "Vanity Fair" was not

^ Thackeray (English Men of Letters), pp. 43-5.
330

^N^:5%

■/I

WILLIAM MAKKI'EACE THACKKRAY
From a ficncii sketch by Ricliard Doyle, in the British Museum

i8Si] DISLIKES LECTURING 331

likely to be imperilled by reading to an audience ** The
English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century " or
*'The Four Georges" ; but Thackeray was not happy
about it. Sir Edward Hamley and other friends
remonstrated with him, arguing that a man of his
talents should not waste his time in such a way ; and
Thackeray told Lady CuUum no one could conceive
how it mortified him to have to make money by
lecturing: speaking of Carlyle, "//e would not go
round making a show of himself as I am doing," he
exclaimed. ''But he has lectured! He did it once,
and was done with it." However, he forced himself to
overcome his objections, remembering it was his
duty, as it was, of course, his desire, to make money
to replace his patrimony, and thus to make provision
for his family.

But as I don't intend to touch the proceeds of the
lectures myself [he wrote to Dr. John Brown] and
shall invest all the winnings for my two girls
and their poor mother, I'm bolder than I should be
otherwise in the business, and determined to carry it
through with brazen resolution.

The subject selected for the series of lectures was
** The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century."
The writers of this period had always been Thackeray's
favourite reading, and at the moment they were much
in his mind, owing to the fact that he was studying the
eighteenth century, which was to be the scene of the
novel upon which he was now engaged.

The first lecture was given on the afternoon of
May 22, and the others were delivered on May 29,
June 12, 19, 26, and July 3. The price for a reserved

332 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1851-

seat for the course was two guineas, and seven shillings
and sixpence was charged for an unreserved place for a
single lecture. Always averse to public speaking,
Thackeray's nervousness during the half-hour before
the delivery of the first lecture was pitiable. "Going
thither (to Willis's Rooms) before the time for his
beginning," Mrs. Kemble has related, "I found him
standing like a forlorn, disconsolate giant in the middle
of the room, gazing about him. ' Oh, Lord,' he ex-
claimed, as he shook hands with me, ' I'm sick at my
stomach with fright.' I spoke some words of encourage-
ment to him, and was going away, but he held
my hand like a scared child, crying, * Oh, don't
leave me!' 'But,' said I, 'Thackeray, you mustn't
stand here. Your audience are beginning to come in,'
and I drew him from the middle of his chairs and
benches, which were beginning to be occupied, into
the retiring-room adjoining the lecture-room, my own
readings having made me perfectly familiar with both.
Here he began pacing up and down, literally wringing
his hands in nervous distress. 'Now,' said I, 'what
shall I do ? Shall I stay with you till you begin, or
shall I go, and leave you alone to collect yourself?'
'Oh,' he said, 'if I could only get at that confounded
thing (the MS.) to have a last look at it ! ' ' Where is
it? 'said I. 'Oh, in the next room on the reading-
desk.' 'Well,' said I, 'if you don't like to go in and
get it, I'll fetch it for you.' And remembering well
the position of my reading-table, which had been close
to the door of the retiring-room, I darted in, hoping to
snatch the manuscript without attracting the attention
of the audience, with which the room was already

i852] HIS NERVOUSNESS 333

nearly full. I had been used to deliver my reading
seated at a very low table, but my friend Thackeray
gave his lectures standing, and had a reading-desk
placed on the platform, adapted to his own very tall
stature, so that when I came to get his manuscript it
was almost above my head. Though rather dis-
concerted, I was determined not to go back without it,
and so made a half-jump and a clutch at the book,
when every leaf of it (they were not fastened together)
came fluttering separately down about me. I hardly
know what I did, but I think I must have gone nearly
on all fours, in my agony to gather up the scattered
leaves, and, retreating with them, held them out in
dismay to poor Thackeray, crying, * Oh, look, look,
what a dreadful thing I have done ! ' ' My dear soul,'
he said, ' you couldn't have done better for me. I have
just a quarter of an hour to wait here, and it will take
me about that to page this again, and it's the best
thing in the world that could have happened.' With
which infinite kindness he comforted me, for I was all
but crying, at having, as I thought, increased his
distress and troubles."^

In spite of the nervousness which so affected his voice
that his daughter did not recognise it when she heard
the opening words, '* In treating of the English
Humourists of the past age, it is of the men and of
their lives, rather than of their books, that I ask
permission to speak to you," Thackeray gathered
courage as he proceeded, and was entirely success-
ful. Very different from Dickens's dramatic readings
were Thackeray's lectures ; and, indeed, so far as can

^ Records of Later Life.

334 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1851-

be gathered from the reports of those present, the two
performances bore the relationship that exists between
melodrama and comedy : each admirable of its kind —
but there the resemblance ends. Sir Frank Marzials
says that the secret of Thackeray's charm "lay in an
admirable quiet delivery, that, without undue emphasis
or pause for effect, gave the hearer the full value of
every sentence." Charlotte Bronte wrote to her father
that "Thackeray got up and spoke with as much
simplicity and ease as if he had been speaking to a few
friends by his own fireside ; the lecture was truly good
. . . ; it was finished without being in the least
studied, — a quiet humour and graphic force enlivened
it throughout" ; and Caroline Fox said he read in "a
definite dry manner, but makes you understand what
he is about." Longfellow recorded that the lectures
were "pleasant to hear from that soft, deep, sonorous
voice " ; and Motley, who some years later heard a
lecture on " The Four Georges," wrote : "I was much
impressed with the quiet, graceful ease with which
Thackeray read — ^just a few notes above the conversa-
tional level, — but never rising into the declamatory.
This light-in-hand manner suits well the delicate
hovering rather than superficial style of the composi-
tion. He skims lightly over the surface of the long
epoch, throwing out a sketch here, exhibiting a charac-
teristic trait there, and sprinklingabout a few anecdotes,
portraits, and historical allusions, running about from
grave to gay, from lively to severe, moving and mocking
the sensibilities in a breath, in a way which I should
say was the perfection of lecturing to high-bred
audiences."

1852] "THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS" 335

The audiences at Willis's Rooms included many of
the most famous persons in London. Besides Charlotte
Bronte, Carlyle and his wife went, Harriet Martineau,
too, and Monckton Milnes, Hallam, Dickens, Lord
Carlisle, the Brookfields, Doyle, Cruikshank, Kinglake,
Lord Mahon, Millais, Landseer, Dean Milman, the
Duchess of Sutherland, and Lady Ashburton. Macaulay
was present at each lecture, and referred to one of them
in his diary : ' ' Margaret came to take me to Thackeray's
(third) lecture. He is full of humour and imagination,
and I only wish that these lectures may answer both in
the way of fame and money. He told me, as I was
going out, that the scheme had done wonders for him ;
and I told him, and from my heart, that I wish he had
made ten times as much." ^

The truth is the lectures won't do [Thackeray
wrote to Abraham Hayward on May 23]. They were
all friends, and a packed house, though, to be sure,
it goes to a man's heart to find among his friends
such men as you and Kinglake and Venables,
Higgins, Rawlinson, Carlyle, Ashburton, Hallam,
Milman, Macaulay, Wilberforce, looking on.^

But the lectures did do. They were an undoubted
success — " There is quite q. furore for them," Charlotte
Bronte wrote — and Thackeray was invited to repeat
them by Young Men's Associations and Literary Clubs
all over the country. " They make me an offer of ;^i50
at the Portman Square Rooms— pretty well for six
hours"; he said gleefully, reflecting that an hour's
reading would be as profitable as a week's work.

1 Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, p. 552.
^ Correspondence of Abraham Hayward.

ZZ^ WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY tiSsi-

So he accepted many offers — as he put it, ''the
Titmarsh-Van began its career " — and delivered the
" EngHsh Humourists" at Oxford and Cambridge, at
Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, and a score of
other places during the year.

From the United States also came invitations too
tempting to be refused, and some of these were enter-
tained, though Thackeray could not be persuaded to
sign any contract until he arrived in New York. Before
leaving England, however, he had to finish the novel
upon which he was engaged, " The History of Henry
Esmond, Esquire : A Colonel in the service of Queen
Anne, Written by Himself." This was to be published
in three volumes. " I have given up and only had for
a day or two, the notion for the book in numbers,"
Thackeray said. ''It is much too grave and sad for
that." Diligent reading of eighteenth-century memoirs
was necessary for "Esmond," and Eyre Crowe, who
from April 1851 was Thackeray's secretary and amanu-
ensis, has related how the author, with him in attend-
ance, spent much time in the British Museum Library,
where, in a room allotted to him for the purpose
by Panizzi, he dictated the General Webb and Marl-
borough and Cadogan incident. More of the book
was written at the Athenaeum Club, where one of the
side rooms off the large library was placed at his
disposal; and muchjwas done at the Bedford Hotel,
while his children were with his mother and Major
Carmichael-Smyth in Paris, and the Young Street
house was in the painters' hands.

Shortly after the publication of the early numbers
of "Vanity Fair," Henry Vizetelly, on behalf of

1 1 1.3

1

I

MR. MICHAEL ANGEI.O TITMAIiSII,
As he appeared at Willis's Kooms in Iiis cckbrated cliaracter of Mr. Thackeray.

Ffoiii a sketch hy John Leech in " The Month,' J„/y, /Sj/

i8S2] "ESMOND" 337

Bogue, the publisher, had invited Thackeray to write
as many little volumes as he would undertake
for a series called "Social Zoologies." The first
brochure, "The Gent," by Albert Smith, had been
phenomenally successful ; and Bogue very wisely deter-
mined to secure the best writers for future volumes.
The terms were liberal : a hundred guineas — ^just double
the amount paid for a monthly part, including the
etching of two plates, of "Vanity Fair." Thackeray
admitted the offer was tempting, but declined — it was
said, by reason of his disinclination to be associated in
any way with Albert Smith. Vizetelly remarked that
Thackeray could not tolerate Smith's mauvais gout,
and that, though showing him outward civility when
brought into contact with him, the occasional observa-
tions which escaped him disclosed his true sentiments
respecting the other's mountebank ways. When
"Pendennis" was nearly finished, Vizetelly again ap-
proached Thackeray, this time on behalf of Messrs.
Smith, Elder and Co. ; and subsequently George Smith,
the head of the firm, called at Young Street. "There's
a young fellow just come," Thackeray said, as he
burst into the room where his daughters were sitting.
" He has brought a thousand pounds in his pocket :
he has made me an offer for my book : it's the most
spirited, handsome offer, I scarcely like to take him
at his word : he's hardly more than a boy ; his name
is George Smith ; he's waiting there now, and I must
go back to him." The actual terms were ^^1200 for an
edition of 2500 copies, to be issued in three volumes
at a guinea and a half.

Thackeray had published his earliest books through

I.— z

33S WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1851-

Macrone and Cunningham ; but afterwards he had
gone to Messrs. Chapman and Hall and Messrs. Brad-
bury and Evans, the former issuing "The Irish Sketch
Book", "From Cornhill to Cairo", "Mrs. Perkins's
Ball", "Our Street", "Dr. Birch and His Young
Friends", and "Rebecca and Rowena " ; the latter,
"Vanity Fair", "Pendennis", "The Book of Snobs,"
and " The Great Hoggarty Diamond." Messrs. Chap-
man and Hall had not been satisfied with the sale of
"Dr. Birch" and "Rebecca and Rowena," and were
not eager to issue another Christmas Book : where-
upon Thackeray invited Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co.
to issue "The Kickleburys on the Rhine," and the
offer was at once accepted. This was the beginning
of the connection between the novelist and the great
publishing house, which in the course of the next few
years issued "Esmond", "The English Humourists,"
and "The Rose and the Ring." Thackeray, however,
did not desert his old friends, the proprietors of Punc/i,
and Messrs. Bradbury and Evans published "The
Newcomes," the four volumes of "Miscellanies"
(1855-7), ^"d " The Virginians "; and it was not until
after the founding of the Cornhill Magazine^ by pur-
chasing the rights of the other firms, that Messrs.
Smith, Elder and Co. became Thackeray's sole pub-
lishers.

In May 1852 Edward FitzGerald saw Thackeray,
who, he says, "was just in the agony of finishing a
novel " and desirous to go abroad for a brief holiday.
The book was finished on May 28, when Thackeray
gave a dinner party to celebrate the occasion.

"You'll find it dull, but it's founded upon family

i8S2] "THE VERY BEST I CAN DO" 339

papers," Thackeray said of *' Esmond" to John (after-
wards Canon) Irvine ; and to another friend he
stated his conviction that the hero is a prig : but
probably he expressed his true opinion to Fields, who
met him soon after his arrival in Boston with the three
volumes of '* Esmond " tucked under his arm : " Here
is the very best I can do ; and I am carrying it to
Prescott as a reward of merit for having given me my
first dinner in America. I stand by this book, and am
willing to leave it where I go as my card."^ Especially
did Thackeray like the chapter where Henry Esmond
returns to Lady Castlewood, bringing his sheaves with
him, as she says — " I wish the whole book was as
good," he added, '' but we can't play first fiddle all the
time."

Charlotte Bronte might think that in "Esmond"
there was ''too much history — too little story," and
George Eliot might pronounce it " a most uncomfort-
able book " ; historical critics might object that there
are blunders : that Thackeray makes the Duke of
Hamilton a few years younger than he was, and makes
him a widower when, as a matter of fact, he had
married a second time in 1698, and was outlived by his
wife ; that Lady Dorchester was not the daughter of
Tom Killigrew but of Sir Charles Sedley ; that Esmond
and Beatrix refer to " Peter Wilkins " some forty years
before that book was published ; that the play which
Lord Castlewood and Lord Mohun went to see at
Drury Lane could not have been ''Love in a Wood,"
because, for one reason anyway, the disguise of a
page is not worn by any of the ladies taking part in

1 J. T. Fields : Yesterdays with Authors,

340 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [i8Si-
that comedy ; and so on. Yet, in spite of all who find
fault with it, "Esmond" has taken its place in litera-
ture, not only as one of the author's masterpieces — for
"Vanity Fair" ranks with it — but as one of the best
historical novels ever written. "Never could I have
believed," said Walter Savage Landor when the book
was published, "that Thackeray, great as his abilities
are, could have written so noble a story as ' Esmond.' "
"A greater novel than 'Esmond' I do not know,"
Professor Saintsbury has written half a century later,
"and I do not know many greater works."

When Esmond was finished Thackeray went abroad
again with his children, and he was somewhat amused
at the difference in his attitude when travelling en
gargon and as a family man. They went to Antwerp,
then down the Rhine, and then to Switzerland, returning
via Paris, where Thackeray left his daughters with
Mrs. Carmichael-Smyth, feeling very keenly the part-
ing with them.

You have just parted from the dear ones with
bursting heart ; and, lonely man, just torn from your
children . . . their little tokens of affection yet in
your pocket . . . pacing the deck at evening in the
midst of the roaring ocean, you can remember how
you were told supper was ready, and how you went
down into the cabin, and had brandy and water and
biscuit. You remember the taste of them. Yes,
for ever. You took them while you and your Grief
were sitting together, and your Grief clutched you
round the soul.

Before Thackeray could go to America, however,
there were more lectures to deliver, "Vanity Fair" to
be revised for a cheaper edition, and the proofs of

i852] SAILS FOR AMERICA 341

*' Esmond" to be passed for press. The original
edition of '* Esmond" was printed in the obsolete type
of the reign of Queen Anne, and as only a small
quantity could be obtained, it took longer than had
been expected to set up the book. Then the manuscript
of the third volume was mislaid at the printers, and
it looked as if the author would have to postpone his
journey until he had rewritten the missing chapters.
Happily the manuscript was found ; but Thackeray
only received his bound copies while he was on the
pier waiting for the tender to carry him to the ship.

Thackeray went to Liverpool to deliver a course of
lectures at the Athen^um in that city on the Tuesdays
and Thursdays, September 28 and 30, and October 5,
7, 12 and 14; and to Manchester at the Philharmonic
Hall on the Wednesdays and Fridays of the same
weeks. Then he returned to London, going again to
Liverpool on October 29, in company with Eyre Crowe,
who was to accompany him to America. That night
they dined at the house of Mr. Ratcliffe ; t\\Q. piece de
resistance of the meal being roast sucking-pig — a sur-
prise for the great man, who loved only beans and
bacon better. On the following morning Thackeray
and Eyre Crowe, with their fellow-travellers, Lowell,
just returned from Italy, and Arthur Hugh Clough,
embarked on the R.M.S. Canada (Captain Lang).

The lectures were as highly approved in the pro-
vinces as in London. At Oxford, where he stayed
with his old friend Stoddart, the readings were worth
thirty pounds apiece ; and Cambridge showed itself
nearly as appreciative as the sister university. At
Edinburgh, too, they were a great success — a hundred

342 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1852

subscribers, and two hundred other people for the first
lecture. Indeed, the audiences there were so large
that the visit to America, at this time arranged for
May, hung in the balance. It was not, however,
abandoned. "I must and will go, not because I like
it, but because it is right I should secure some money
against my death for your mother and you two girls,'
he told his daughters. ''And I think, if I have luck,
I may secure nearly a third of the sum I ought to leave
behind me by a six months' tour in the United States."

CHAPTER XVIII

FIRST VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES

(1852-1853)

Thackeray attacked in an American paper before he sails — a fair chance
g-iven him on arrival — his first dinner at Boston — in New York — his
great popularity in the United States — his books better known there
than in Eng-land — on pirated editions — Thackeray likes America and
Americans — his objections to personal journalism in the United
States — " Mr. Thackeray in the United States " — his lectures in New
York — and elsewhere — " Charity and Humour" — tired of acting the
lion — his sudden departure for England.

THACKERAY prepared for his American
trip in no hilarious frame of mind, and
while lecturing in Liverpool he was further
depressed by seeing in a New York paper
a bitter attack on him. It was, indeed, very doubtful
what reception he would meet with from the Ameri-
cans, who, still smarting under the castigation
inflicted by Dickens in his *' American Notes," and
thinking of the '*Boz" Tableaux and the Dickens
Ball at the Park Theatre, not unnaturally said :
*' Thackeray will come and humbug us, eat our dinners,
pocket our money, and go home, and abuse us like
Dickens." The instinct of fair-play, however, is in all
English-speaking races, and it was tacitly agreed that
Thackeray in the United States should have his
chance.

343

344 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1852-

'*The passage is nothing now it is over," Thackeray,
on his arrival at Boston on a frosty morning, said to
Fields, who at once carried him off to dinner, where
a joke was played upon him. '' In London," Fields
has related, "Thackeray had been very curious in his
enquiries about American oysters, as marvellous stories,
which he did not believe, had been told him of their
great size. We apologised — although we had taken
care that the largest specimen to be procured should
startle his unwonted vision when he came to the table
— for what we called the extreme smallness of the
oysters, promising that we would do better next time.
Six Falstaffian bivalves lay before him in their shells.
I noticed he gazed at them anxiously, with fork up-
raised ; then he whispered to me with a look of
anguish, 'How shall I do it?' I described to him the
simple process by which the free-born citizens of
America were accustomed to accomplish such a task.
He seemed satisfied that the thing was feasible,
selected the smallest one in the half-dozen (rejecting
a large one, ' because,' he said, ' it resembled the High
Priest's servant's ear that Peter cut off'), and then
bowed his head as if he were saying grace. All eyes
were upon him to watch the effect of a new sensation
in the person of a great British Author. Opening his
mouth very wide, he struggled for a minute, and then
all was over. I shall never forget the comic look of
despair he cast upon the other five over-occupied
shells. I broke the perfect stillness by asking him
how he felt. 'Profoundly grateful,' he gasped, 'and
as if I had swallowed a little baby.' " ^

^ J. T. Fields : Yesterdays with Authors.

i8S3] IN THE UNITED STATES 345

Thackeray had been advised to open his tour in
New York, and he repaired to that city on Novem-
ber 16, being amused in the train by *'a rosy-
cheeked little peripatetic book-merchant" crying
"Thackeray's Works!" from whom he bought ''A
Shabby Genteel Story " to read on the journey.
Prescott was his first visitor in New York. "The
historian is delightful," he wrote to English friends ;
adding that society at New York was like that of
"a rich cathedral - town in England — grave and
decorous, and very pleasant and well-read." One
evening he heard Bancroft lecture before the New
York Historical Society ; and on another he was
initiated into the mysteries of spirit-rapping and
table-turning at a stance conducted by the notorious
Home. He met Horace Greeley, the proprietor of
the Daily Tribune^ in the columns of which he had
been welcomed to the United States by Henry James,
father of the novelist.

The impartiality with which the United States had
determined to receive Thackeray was, before a week
was over, turned into a great enthusiasm. "The
popular Thackeray-theory before his arrival was ot
a severe satirist who concealed scalpels in his sleeves
and carried probes in his waistcoat pocket ; a wearer
of masks ; a scoffer and sneerer and general infidel of
all high aim and noble character," said a writer in
Putnam's Monthly Magazine for June 1853. "Cer-
tainly we are justified in saying that his presence
among us quite corrected this idea. We welcomed a
friendly, genial man ; not at all convinced that speech
is heaven's first law, but willing to be silent when

"^

346 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1852-

there was nothing to say — who decidedly refused to be
lionised, not by sulking, but by stepping off the
pedestal and challenging the common sympathies of
all he met. . . . We conceive . . . the chief merit
of Thackeray's visit to be that he convinced us of his
intellectual integrity, he showed us how impossible it
is for him to see the world and describe it other than
he does. He does not profess cynicism, nor satirise
society with malice, and his interests are human and
concrete, not abstract."

Within a few days of his arrival in New York
Thackeray was being feted as he had never been before,
and luncheons, dinners and suppers in his honour were
so numerous that he laughingly spoke of his visit as
*'one unbroken round of indigestion." He was the
most popular man in the city : to shake hands with
him even was regarded as a pleasure, to converse with
him an honour. Judging from the innumerable records
of Thackeray in America,^ nearly everyone who was
with him for half an hour must have written down his
impressions ; and to this day those surviving men and
women who knew him cherish his memory. *'For
years I was constantly hearing gossip about Thackeray
from those who had met him during his visits to us,"
the present American Ambassador to this country (the
Hon. Whitelaw Reid) recently remarked in the course
of his speech when he was in the chair of the English
Titmarsh Club, of which he is a member.^ "Their

1 Many of these records have been collected by General James Grant
Wilson, and printed in his interesting volume on "Thackeray in the
United States."

^ This speech was subsequently printed as an Introduction to the
edition of Vanity Fair in " Everyman's Library."

i853] HIS POPULARITY 347

accounts all ran one way. They admired his talk and
they loved him. They pictured him as big, hearty,
and very human. They didn't find him playing the
lion the least little bit. . . . They pointed out the
corner in the Century Club where he used to sit ex-
changing literary chat, or, in Yankee, parlance, 'swap-
ping stories,' with a group of club men about him.
They could tell you years afterwards what had been
Thackeray's favourite chair, and some had even been
so observant of the least trifles about the great man as
to know what particular concoction in a club tumbler
had been his favourite ' night-cap.' "

It is not surprising that, when the distrust of
him had vanished, Thackeray should have become
immensely popular. Long before there was any
thought of his visiting the United States, his writings
were better known, and more widely appreciated
than in his own country. In England he only
''arrived" with "Vanity Fair," in America his
"Yellowplush Correspondence" and "Major Gahagan"
had attracted attention and his career had been followed
with interest by a considerable public from this time
forth. The "Yellowplush Correspondence," which
appeared in Eraser's Magazine in 1837 s-"^ 1838, and
" Major Gahagan," which was printed in the Nexi)
Monthly Magazine in the same years, were issued at
once in book-form in America, though here they were
not collected until 1841 ; and other of his works, includ-
ing "Stubbs's Calendar", "The Irish Sketch Book"
and "From Cornhill to Cairo," were pirated immedi-
ately after publication. "Jeames's Diary," which
was not issued in book-form in England until 1856,

348 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1852-

was at once collected there ; and similar honours of
publication earlier than in the country of their origin
were accorded to ''The Great Hoggarty Diamond"
and, indeed, to all the works prior to "Vanity Fair."
" Vanity Fair ", " Pendennis " and " Esmond " were to
be had in America almost as soon as in London. This,
no doubt, is directly attributable to the fact that in the
United States there was then no protection for Eng-
lish authors ; and, as there was no royalty to pay,
their works could be produced more cheaply, and so
made more accessible to the public. Some publishers,
however, took the honourable course of paying
Thackeray a fee ; and among these, to its credit,
may be mentioned the great house of Harper, which
paid respectively ;^I50, ;^ioo, and ;^48o for the advance
sheets of "The Newcomes", "Esmond" and "The
Virginians." Putnams, too, would willingly have done
the right thing by him, but their offer could not be
entertained.

Messrs. Harpers, who have published my larger
books and have paid my London publisher for my
last work, have offered me a sum of money for the
republication of my lectures, and all things con-
sidered, I think it is best that I should accept their
liberal proposal. I thank you very much for your
generous offer ; and for my own sake, as well as
that of my literary brethren in England, I am sin-
cerely rejoiced to find how very kindly the American
publishers are disposed to us. . . ^

Thackeray, who liked money as well as most men,
was annoyed that piracy was possible, but, since noth-

^ Puinaffi's Magazine, Vol. IV, p. 68 1.

1853] AMERICAN "PIRATES" 349

ing he could do would alter the state of things, he put
a good face on it.

That extreme liberality with which American pub-
lishers have printed the works of English authors
has had at least this beneficial result for us — that our
names and writings are known by multitudes using
our common mother tongue, who never had heard
of us or our books, but for the speculators who have
sent them all over this continent.

It is, of course, not unnatural for the English
writer to hope that some day he may share a portion
of the profits which his works bring at present to
the persons who vend them in this country ; and I
am bound gratefully to say myself that since my
arrival here I have met with several publishing
houses who are willing to acknowledge our little
claim to participate in the advantages arising out of
our books ; and the present writer, having long
since ascertained that a portion of a loaf is more
satisfactory than no bread at all, gratefully accepts
and acknowledges several slices which the book-
purveyors in this city have proffered to him of their
own free-will.

If we are not paid in full and in specie as yet,
English writers surely ought to be thankful for the
very great kindness and friendliness with which the
American public receives them ; and if we hope some
day that measures may pass here to legalise our right
to profit a little by the commodities which we invent
and in which we deal, I, for one, can cheerfully say
that the goodwill towards us from publishers and
public is undoubted, and wait for still better times
with perfect confidence and good-humour.^

If the Americans were delighted with Thackeray, he
in his turn was most agreeably astonished. "You
know what a virtue-proud people we English are. We

1 Preface to Appleton's edition oi Mr. Bro-wn's Letters, 1853.

350 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1852-

think we have got it all to ourselves," he replied to the
Hon. William B. Reed (sometime the United States
Minister to China), who had asked for his candid
opinion of the United States. "Now that which
most impresses me here is, that I find homes as pure as
ours, firesides like ours, domestic virtues as gentle ;
the English language, though the accent be a little
different, with its homelike melody ; and the Common
Prayer Book in your families. I am more struck by
pleasant resemblances than anything else." ^

You are more tender-hearted, romantic, senti-
mental, than we are [he wrote later to Reed]. I
keep on telling this to our fine people here, and
have so belaboured your country with praise in
private that I sometimes think I go too far. I keep
back some of the truth, but the great point to ding
into the ears of the great stupid virtue-proud English
public is, that there are folks as good as they in
America. That's where Mrs. Stowe's book has done
harm, by inflaming us with an idea of our own
superior virtue in freeing our blacks, whereas you
keep yours. Comparisons are always odorous, Mrs.
Malaprop says.^

There was one thing, however, to which Thackeray
strongly objected : the personal journalism, then
happily almost unknown in England, but already
rampant in the United States. He could not escape
the reporters, and had to bear the trial as good-
humouredly as possible : he had his tit-for-tat with
them by satirising the American newspapers in an
article entitled "Mr. Thackeray in the United States,"
which appeared in Eraser's Magazine^ January 1853.

^ W. B. Reed: Haud hnmemor — Thackeray in the United States.
2 Ibid.

'^53] AN AMUSING SKIT 351

You cannot help perceiving that the Hon in
America is public property and confiscate to the
common weal. They trim the creature's nails, they
cut the hair off his mane and tail (which is distributed
or sold to his admirers), and they draw his teeth,
which are frequently preserved with much the same
care as you keep any memorable grinder whose
presence has been agony and departure delight.

Bear-leading is not so in vogue across the Atlantic
as at your home in England ; but lion-leading is
infinitely more in fashion.

Some learned man is appointed Androcles to the
new arrival. One of the familiars of the press is
despatched to attend the latest attraction, and by this
reflecting medium the lion is perpetually presented
to the popular gaze. The guest's most secret self
is exposed by his host. Every action, every word,
every gesture, is preserved and proclaimed — a sigh,
a nod, a groan, a sneeze, a cough, or a wink, is each
written down by this recording minister, who blots
out nothing. No tabula rasa with him. The por-
trait is limned with the fidelity of Parrhasius, and
filled up with the minuteness of the Daguerre pro-
cess itself. No blood-hound or Bow-street officer
can be keener or more exact on the trail than this
irresistible and unavoidable spy. 'Tis in Austria
they calotype criminals ; in the far West the public
press prints the identity of each notorious visitor to
its shores.

The article was anonymous, but it was almost imme-
diately recognised as from his pen. It caused as much
amusement in America as in England, and if in the
former country some sensitive persons felt a touch of
annoyance, it was removed when they came to the last
page, where Thackeray printed the tribute to this land
which he had delivered at the conclusion of the last
lecture of the first course of " The English Humourists
of the Eighteenth Century."

352 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1852-

In England it was my custcm after the delivery of
these lectures to point such a moral as seemed to
befit the country I lived in, and to protest against an
outcry, which some brother authors of mine most
imprudently and unjustly raise, when they say that
our profession is neglected and its professors held in
light esteem. Speaking in this country, I would say
that such a complaint could not only not be advanced,
but could not even be understood here, where your
men of letters take their manly share in public life ;
whence Everett goes as Minister to Washington,
and Irving and Bancroft to represent the republic in
the old country. And if to English authors the
English public is, as I believe, kind and just in the
main, can any of us say, will any who visit your
country not proudly and gratefully own, with what a
cordial and generous greeting you receive us? I look
round on this great company, I think of my gallant
young patrons of the Mercantile Literary Association,
as whose servant I appear before you ; and of the
kind hands stretched out to welcome me by men
famous in letters, and honoured in our country as in
their own, and I thank you and them for a most
kindly greeting and a most generous hospitality. At
home, and amongst his own people, it scarce be-
comes an English writer to speak of himself, his
public estimation must depend upon his works ; his
private esteem on his character, and on his life. But
here among friends newly found, I ask leave to say
that I am thankful ; and I think with a grateful heart
of those I leave behind meat home, who will be proud
of the welcome you hold out to me, and will benefit,
please God, when my days of work are over, by the
kindness which you show to their father.

Thackeray in the United States found many congenial
companions, he met Washington Irving, Prescott,
Ticknor, and Longfellow, and struck up an intimacy
with William B. Reed and the Baxter family, with
whom he corresponded during the rest of his life. " By

i853] IN NEW YORK 353

jove ! how kind you all were to me," he wrote to Reed.
** How I like people and want to see 'em again." Cer-
tainly everybody conspired to make his tour agreeable.

The business arrangements for the lecturing were
made so far as possible without troubling him with
details of the negotiations, and the tour was carried out
under the auspices of the Mercantile Literary Associa-
tion, of which institution the president was Millard L.
Felt. The first lecture was delivered on the evening of
November 19, in the Church of the Unity, on the east
side of Broadway, near Prince's Street, a Unitarian
chapel of which Dr. Chapin (who had recently succeeded
the Rev. Henry Bellows) was the pastor. Thackeray
had to read from a rostrum fronting the pulpit, and he
pretended not to be at his ease until he received the
assurance that the organ would not accompany his
utterances. Twelve hundred people were assembled,
and these included such literary celebrities as Ticknor,
Bancroft, Bryant, and Greeley. " He is a stout,
healthful, broad-shouldered specimen of a man, with
cropped greyish hair and bluish-grey eyes, peering
very strongly through a pair of spectacles that have a
very satiric focus," he was sketched by one of the
audience. "He seems to stand strongly on his own
feet, as if he would not be very easily blown about or
upset either by praise or pugilists — a man who scents
all shams or rumours, straightening them between his
thumb and finger as he would a pinch of snuff."

All the tickets for the first course had been sold before

he landed ; and, thus encouraged, the organisers had

arranged a second course to begin on December 6. So

successful was this, too, and the c urse delivered at

I. — 2 A

354 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1852-
Brooklyn, that before leaving New York, Thackeray
placed to his credit at his bankers the sum of five
thousand dollars. A minimum estimate of the lecturer's
receipts during the first American tour is ^^^2500 ; but it
is probable that double the amount was realised.

From Brooklyn, where he met the great Barnum,
who wanted him to write something in the first number
of a paper in imitation of the Illustrated London News,
just about to make its appearance, Thackeray went to
Boston. "I remember," Fields has recorded of the
first reading at the great Melodeon Music Hall in that
city, **his uproarious shouting and dancing when he
was told that the tickets to his first course of lectures
were all sold ; and when we rode together from his
hotel to the lecture-hall, he insisted on thrusting both
his long legs out of the carriage window, in deference,
as he said, to his magnanimous ticket-holders."^

'* At Boston there is very good literary society
indeed," he remarked ; and indeed the fact must have
been very apparent to him when he saw in his first
night's audience the faces of Longfellow, Whittier,
Emerson, Holmes, Prescott, and Ticknor. He supped
with Longfellow ; and went to Cambridge to see Lowell
who promised: ** You shall either be carried back to
Boston, or spend the night with us." He became
intimate with Ticknor, especially on his second visit.
He invited himself to eat a Christmas dinner with the
historian and his family ; and on New Year's eve
watched the New Year in by their fireside, rising on
the stroke of twelve, with tears in his eyes, to exclaim :
"God bless my girls, and all who are kind to them."

1 J. T. Fields : Yesterdays with Authors.

i8s3] IN PHILADELPHIA, ETC. 355

That prince among humorists, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, naturally attracted him. " A dear little fellow,
a true poet," he said. " I told him how much I liked
his verses, and what do you think he did? His eyes
began to water. Well, it's a comfort to have given
pleasure to that kind soul."

After visiting Philadelphia and Baltimore, Thackeray
went to Washington, where he was the guest of the
British Minister, Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Crampton,
"most hospitable of envoys," Thackeray dubbed him,
and described his stay in that city as "an interminable
succession of balls, parties, and banquets." He dined
with President Filmore, and that personage came to his
lecture in company with General Pierce, the President-
Elect. "Two Kings of Brentford smelling at one
rose," Washington Irving murmured to the lecturer as
they appeared. In one of the " Snob Papers" Thack-
eray said the height of rapture must be to walk down
Pall Mall arm-in-arm with a couple of dukes : lecturing
before two Presidents was surely only one degree less
magnificent.

From Washington Thackeray returned to New York
to give a lecture on January 31, in the Church of the
Messiah, for the benefit of a Sewing Society of a Uni-
tarian Church, in which some of his friends were inter-
ested. He composed for the occasion a special discourse
on " Charity and Humour," in which he compared the
humorists of the eighteenth with their successors of the
nineteenth century.

Charleston was reached, after many other i)laces
had been visited, on March 8; and three discourses
were read in the Hibernian Hall. Thackeray met

356 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY [1852-

Professor Agassiz, who was also there to lecture: "a
delightful bonhomrnious person, as frank and unpre-
tending as he is learned and illustrious in his own
branch." Savannah followed, where he was the guest
of Andrew Low, the British Consul ; but the lectures
were not a financial success, and the attendance was
smaller than anywhere else on the tour, with the ex-
ception perhaps of Pittsburg. In April he was back
at the Clarendon Hotel, New York. He went for a
couple of days to Albany ; and intended to go to
Canada — indeed, his appearance at Montreal was an-
nounced — but he never crossed the border.

Long before the tour was over Thackeray was
heartily sick of it and the attendant publicity. Only
the thought of the benefit that was accruing to his
children enabled him to continue so long. "Even
when I am reading my lectures, I often think to myself
' What a humbug you are, and I wonder people don't
find you out,' " he exclaimed one day to Bayard Taylor ;
and he wrote to Mrs. Elliot to say how much he
desired a week's holiday without his " dem'd lecture-
box." Suddenly he made up his mind he must return.
On the morning of April 20 he astonished Eyre Crowe,
who had arranged for him to visit several towns in the
middle and western states, by saying : "I see there's
a Cunarder going this morning. I'll go down to Wall
Street to see whether I can secure berths in her." His
quest was successful. He scribbled on a card :
''Good-bye, Fields; good-bye, Mrs. Fields; God bless
everybody, says W.M.T." — there was no time for per-
sonal farewells — hurried down Broadway, got into a
boat on the east river, reached the Europa to be greeted

i8S3] RETURNS TO ENGLAND 357

with the cry, "Hurry up — she's starting ! " and landed at
Liverpool almost exactly six months after his departure.
The story of his arrival at his house has been charm-
ingly told by his eldest daughter in the following words :
"When the long summer and winter were over, and
the still longer spring, suddenly one day we heard he
was coming back much sooner than he had expected.
I believe he saw a steamer starting for home and could
stand it no longer, and then and there came off. I can
still remember sitting with my grandparents, expecting
his return. My sister and I sat on the red sofa in the
little study, and shortly before the time we had calcu-
lated he might arrive came a little ring at the front
door-bell. My grandmother broke down ; my sister
and I rushed to the front door, only we were so afraid
that it might not be he that we did not dare to open it,
and there we stood until a second and much louder
ring brought us to our senses. ' Why didn't you open
the door?' said my father, stepping in, looking well,
broad, and upright, laughing. In a moment he had
never been away at all."^

1 Chapters from some Memoirs, p. 171.

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